Global Warming Cookbooks

Something I meant to add to yesterday's "The Raw and the Cooked"
post but ran out of time and/or patience. One point there is that
I recognize that where one stands on global warming is more often
than not consistent with one's political stance. Leftists of most
stripes not only see the need for aggressive state intervention to
mitigate (or even better to reverse) the global warming trend, they
tend to insist that the dire threat of global warming commands us to
adopt their policy directions. One reason I'm especially cognizant
of this is that I've recently read two books that do just that.

McKibben, whose first book, The End of Nature was one of the
first books on the subject back in 1989, does have an introductory
chapter which reads like a catalog of horrors, but he's more
interested in reprising his 2007 book Deep Economy: The Wealth of
Communities and the Durable Future -- you wouldn't be wrong to
think of the new book as a mash-up of the two previous books -- which
is to say he's primarily concerned with promoting the ideal of small
scale local economies. McKibben builds on a lot of recent work,
especially regarding food, but his basic ideas have been kicking
around for decades now, developed by people like Murray Bookchin and
Paul Goodman who developed them without the slightest concern for
global warming.

Schor is a sociologist who at least as far back as the early 1990s
decided that the rat race isn't all it's cracked up to be. She's
expressed that in at least two previous books: The Overworked
American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure (1992) and The
Overspent American: Why We Want Want We Don't Need (1998).
The new book goes further toward sketching out a more satisfying
economy based on less overwork and overspending. And while global
warming and peak oil play into her rationales, there's no reason
to think she'd think differently if they weren't factors at all.
Again, her ideas aren't terribly original -- Goodman and Bookchin
have been there, as well as Marxists like Paul Sweezy and Andre
Gorz, and for that matter the notion even shows up in John Maynard
Keynes, who -- see
John Skidelsky:
Keynes: The Return of the Master -- saw capitalism
as a path to "the good life" rather than an end in itself.

You can click on the links, including the cover images, to
pick up a fair sampling of quotes from each book.

The economic visions of McKibben and Schor are only two of
many possible programs that can be hitched to global warming,
but all but the most dystopian involve taking deliberate and
systematic direction to mitigate (or better still to reverse)
the consequences. The proposals of someone like Al Gore or
the various thinkers in the Obama administration hardly seem
to me to be leftist, but conservatives are stuck in such a
rut of denial they can't even warm up to market-oriented
approaches like cap-and-trade or tax credits to stimulate
investment in non-carbon-based energy sources -- ideas that
used to come out of conservative think tanks when thinking
was still permitted.

There is, of course, something disingenuous about hoisting
one's pet ideas (or nonsense) up whatever flag pole seems to
be getting attention, but that doesn't invalidate them -- best
to try to sort out each problem and each proposal on its own
terms. McKibben and Schor (and for that matter Skidelsky/Keynes)
offer attractive notions of how to re-engineer the economy to
make is more satisfying, and that seems like something worth
thinking about -- at least on the left, where we believe that
how we run the world is at least largely a matter of choice.

PS: It finally occurs to me that one defense of Schor
and McKibben is that if one adopted their economic ideas, there
would be an immediate and substantial reduction in the forces
driving global warming. Again, if you choose an economy meant
to satisfy the needs and desires of its inhabitants, you'd come
up with something that doesn't just drown us in destabilizing
pollutants, like we have gotten from laissez faire approaches.

One might also add that the cap-and-trade people are the real
conservatives, since they're basically trying to stabilize the
existing system using levers that are consistent with its current
operation. Again, the right fails to conserve anything; they're
happy to let the economy flail itself to death in contradictions
they're too ignorant and/or uncaring to even recognize.

Floundering Fanmail

I found your site while looking for some info which I found in your
project section. That is until . . . I discovered that I truly despise
your website, especially for your politics. Now, regardless of how
worthwhile contacting you for any other reason may have been, I could
never offer you anything except an argument and ultimately my pity
. . . for you sir, are a fool.

By the time you realize that those you have championed are not who
you think they are, the damage will be done and you will only be able
to look back on your mistakes and wish you had been much, much more
wise.

I really don't have any idea what he's talking about. The "project
section" could deal with Israel or with kitchens or with various stabs
at outlining a book (about politics). I'm willing to entertain the
proposition that I'm a fool, but I don't see how that works. I don't
know who he thinks I'm championing -- aside from some powerless and
harmless jazz musicians, my endorsements are pretty mild (e.g., Kerry
sucks less than Bush, but then so does practically everyone) and I do
tend to refine them as new evidence arrives (e.g., I turned pretty
hard against Clinton around 1998 over his deceitful and reckless turn
on Iraq, which contributed significantly to Bush's 2003 invasion; and
I've hardly hestitated to criticize Obama, not that McCain has done
a thing to make me regret my 2008 vote). While I've adjusted a lot
of details in my thought over the years, I find that I've actually
had very little reason to second guess the political stance I took
way back in 1966-68, when I threw off the last residues of God and
Goldwaterism. I could run down a lot of detail changes, but they seem
irrelevant here. The charge, as I read it, is not just that I've been
a fool but that because of my foolishness things will happen that I
will come to regret. That's the perplexing part. Most of what I have
to say about politics is negative, especially in the sense of saying
that if the powers that be do such and such a bunch of bad things
will result. I do that a lot, and over the last 45 years I think I
have a pretty good track record of predicting bad things. The other
thing I do rather less is to propose that we do things differently,
in such and such a way. The problem there isn't that people follow
my advice and find out that it doesn't work; the problem there is
that virtually nothing that I propose ever gets tried, and as such
tested out. The plain fact is that I don't speak to, let alone for,
any politically connected or established force. I'm out on my own,
thinking as if it matters, yet quite frankly it does not. So how
could I ever be held responsible for all this imminent damage?

I suppose I could write back and ask for clarification, but one
always worries about getting entangled with someone who is deeply
disturbed. Maybe he isn't, but something is off here. The one thing
that tempts me is that I've never been able to understand why so
many people on the right despise people on the left when it's long
been obvious to me that those on the left, regardless of practical
faults (which in the case of someone like Stalin are monumental),
chose the left for basically kind and generous motives -- unlike
those on the right.

The Raw and the Cooked

Paul Krugman: Who Cooked the Planet?
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid threw in the towel on trying to
pass any climate-change legislation this year, so Krugman tries
to pin down responsibility for inaction:

The answer is, the usual suspects: greed and cowardice.

If you want to understand opposition to climate action, follow the
money. The economy as a whole wouldn't be significantly hurt if we put
a price on carbon, but certain industries -- above all, the coal and
oil industries -- would. And those industries have mounted a huge
disinformation campaign to protect their bottom lines.

Look at the scientists who question the consensus on climate
change; look at the organizations pushing fake scandals; look at the
think tanks claiming that any effort to limit emissions would cripple
the economy. Again and again, you'll find that they're on the
receiving end of a pipeline of funding that starts with big energy
companies, like Exxon Mobil, which has spent tens of millions of
dollars promoting climate-change denial, or Koch Industries, which has
been sponsoring anti-environmental organizations for two decades.

Or look at the politicians who have been most vociferously opposed
to climate action. Where do they get much of their campaign money? You
already know the answer.

He then lashes in to "climate cowards" like Sen. John McCain.
Fair enough. But as a card-carrying Keynesian, shouldn't Krugman
suspect that ideology ("bad ideas") is more to blame than mere
interest? For a better explanation, turn to:
Ross Douthat: The Right and the Climate:

There was no way to get a bill through without some support from
conservative lawmakers. And in the global warming debate, there's a
seemingly unbridgeable gulf between the conservative movement and the
environmentalist cause.

To understand why, it's worth going back to the 1970s, the crucible
in which modern right-wing politics was forged.

The Seventies were a great decade for apocalyptic enthusiasms, and
none was more potent than the fear that human population growth had
outstripped the earth's carrying capacity. According to a chorus of
credentialed alarmists, the world was entering an age of sweeping
famines, crippling energy shortages, and looming civilizational
collapse.

It was not lost on conservatives that this analysis led inexorably
to left-wing policy prescriptions -- a government-run energy sector at
home, and population control for the teeming masses overseas.

The fundamental political issue of our times is whether government
should act as a counterbalance against the various problems kicked
up by capitalism, or whether government should be limited to support
of the capitalist order. The latter position, which had been gaining
ground from the 1970s up to the current Great Recession, seeks to do
three things: 1) to concentrate wealth in private hands; 2) to make
the regulation of business private and discretionary, not subject to
public policy; 3) to make government as unattractive as possible to
anyone without significant money, and thereby keep them from looking
to government for any kind of support. The latter isn't easy: we live
in a putative democracy, where government is supposed to belong to
and serve the people, and the people actually served by deregulation
and wealth concentration are inevitably a tiny minority. That they
have any chance of ruling at all is due to their skill at spinning
a story line -- an ideology -- that seems to back their case.

They're good at spinning that story -- indeed, they should be,
given that they have most of the money and practically all of the
media -- but sometimes they run into trouble, like when the economy
crashes, and then their spiel loses credibility. That happened big
time in 1929-32 when many people concluded that capitalism had
broken beyond repair. That led to desperate efforts at reform,
all of which involved deliberate massive government intervention:
communism (which was too anti-capitalist), fascism (which was too
anti-worker), and Keynesian liberalism, which sought to save
capitalism by rebalancing productive forces, and by using public
spending to make up for shortfalls in demand. And it happened on
a smaller scale in 2008 -- the mitigating factor is that we've
kept relatively high levels of government spending all these
years even though the ideology disparages it.

So conservatives reject doing anything about global warming
because only government can do anything about -- worst still,
only most world governments acting in concert -- and they've
been trained to see any government effort at solving any problem
as an existential attack on the privileges of the rich (err,
on conservative principles, God and country, family values,
all that we hold near and dear). That story about alarmists in
the 1970s being proven wrong is just window dressing. Still,
that doesn't mean they're right now, or were even right in the
1970s.

Ehrlich is certainly right that persistent population growth
will eventually exceed the feeding capacity of the earth. What
caught him unawares was the increase in productive efficiency
caused mostly by putting more oil into agriculture. That such
an increase happened doesn't mean that further increases will
continue to happen, especially if energy inputs get much more
expensive. (The other main hope is genetic manipulation, which
is harder to predict -- especially side-effects.) The 1970s
also saw an oil crunch, in large part politically concocted
but also tied to peak oil being passed in the US. This led to
a glut in the 1980s partly driven by politics -- the UK tried
to drain its North Sea fields in record time -- and in any
case unlikely to be reproduced.

In retrospect, Ehrlich's biggest mistake may have been to
think that limiting population would conserve resources. The
best counterexample is China, where drastic restrictions led
to an extraordinary growth spurt and corresponding demand
for natural resources (energy and materials, of course, but
even food demand increases especially if it involves meat).
The same correlation applies throughout the developing world,
where economic growth is closely tied to limiting population
growth -- which for one thing means that the right's pronatal
obsession works to keep the developing world from developing.

Still, the issue is something else: conservatives maintain
that concerted government action to mitigate climate change
would cause more harm than benefit, at least compared to what
unregulated markets may (or may not) accomplish. It's hard to
see why that might be the case, unless you believe that even
a successful governmental intervention would be a bad thing
for your political standing. It's certainly easy to see how
government action could go wrong, especially given our system
of political influence peddling. On the other hand, if you
take the threat seriously, it's even harder to see how an
unregulated private sector would solve it except through a
painful process of crash and retrenchment -- a cycle that
unregulated markets never tire of repeating.

I don't have much to say about the threats posed by global
warming. It should by now be obvious that we tend to take some
threats more seriously than warranted and others less. Climate
change splits both ways, probably because it's been reduced to
a right-left litmus test, but also because climate seems so
basic it must matter greatly while at the same time it is so
changeable day-to-day that the projected ranges don't stray
much from our experience. (I've followed many paleontological
debates about climate change vs. other causes for extinction
events, and have never found climate change to be convincing
as an explanation, so I tend to be skeptical about disaster
models. On the other hand, we are dreadful at evaluating rare
but extremely dire prospects, which certainly are possible
here.)

Douthat does say one more thing of special interest here,
about "global-warming heretics" like Bjorn Lomborg and Freeman
Dyson:

Their perspective is grounded, in part, on the assumption that a
warmer world will also be a richer world -- and that economic
development is likely to do more for the wretched of the earth than a
growth-slowing regulatory regime.

In one sense I don't see the assumption. A warmer world will be
one where a lot of resources will be dislocated, which will favor
some people while disfavoring others, but at least in the short run
such shifts are most likely to destroy more wealth quicker than
they will allow new wealth to be created. Maybe in the long term
that balances out, but I don't see how you can count on that.
Moreover, the change will disproportionately take its toll on
those who own wealth now, simply because they have the most to
lose. It is, therefore, easy to see why Europe and the US should
be more worried about global warming than the developing world --
even aside from fairness issues, or the suspicion that we are
trying to lock in a permanent advantage. For the developing world --
especially the part that really is growing its economy -- the
tables are reversed. For countries like China, India, and Brazil
there is virtually no reason to sacrifice growth now for climate
stability later. (Research shows that more money does make you
happier, but only to a point: once you've broken out of poverty
it makes less and less difference.) Douthat concludes:

Not every danger has a regulatory solution, and sometimes it makes
sense to wait, get richer, and then try to muddle through.

Indeed, if you're a developing country that is growing fast
enough that it's not just the rich who are getting richer, that
sounds like good advice. On the other hand, that doesn't sound
like America, where government inaction and irresponsibility
over the last 30 years has eroded everyone's wealth except for
the upper crust's. For most people in America the time to act
is now -- if not on climate change, at least on the more basic
political dispute.

Music Week

Music: Current count 16920 [16887] rated (+33), 846 [852] unrated (-6).
Another rough week, although the pressure let up midway we got the
bathroom tile done and I started to put things away. Surprised that
the rated count topped 30, although a couple of accounting errors
helped. Wondered how long it has been since I bagged that many, but
grep shows that it's only been two weeks since I broke 30, but 15
weeks since I got more (38 back on April 19 -- big Rhapsody week).
Some Rhapsody this week, some pointed towards Recycled Goods, which
is short on pick hits.

Jazz Prospecting (CG #24, Part 7)

Heat wave broke a bit this weekend, although it will be back
to 98F by midweek. Got my bathroom wall tile grouted and caulked,
(nearly) finishing one of the nastier and messier house tasks of
recent times. Still have a lot of rearranging to do, but I've
resolved not to try to build anything until it cools off -- which
around here usually means October. Internet went down after that,
but I mostly plugged away on computer, taking notes on Geoffrey
Wawro's Quicksand, and starting to construct a new edition
of the shopping list I used to carry around when I used to be
able to find used CD stores. Cutting it back from the old one,
starting with only including 4-star Penguin Guide jazz
unless I have real good reason to think a lower-rated record is
worth searching for.

Will probably take it easy this week: see if I can round up
something interesting for Recycled Goods (not much yet), work
through some more Jazz Prospecting, clean things up around the
house. Figure out what to do about my obsolescent web server
and my antiquated firewall/mail home. Also note that sometime
in the next week or so I'll start posting Michael Tatum's "A
Downloader's Diary" -- at least that's the working title. What
I've seen so far looks like the first decent stab at making up
for the loss of Christgau's Consumer Guide. Meanwhile, some
finds below.

Fred Hersch Trio: Whirl (2010, Palmetto): Pianist,
b. 1955, has more than 30 albums since 1984, seemed to be the big
mainstream piano hope (Bill Evans division) in the early 1990s,
when he came down with AIDS. He became if anything more prolific
after that, and the sidestory gradually faded until now, as he
mounts a comeback after an episode that left him in a coma for
two months. You get no sense of that from the music here, which
is as bright and chipper as anything he's recorded. Don't really
understand how it works. Maybe something about concentrating the
mind. Maybe just another instance of bassist John Hébert elevating
the game. Drummer Eric McPherson does good, too.
A-

Aaron Goldberg: Home (2007 [2010], Sunnyside):
Pianist, b. 1974 in Boston, passed through Betty Carter's boot
camp, graduated from Harvard, moved to New York; fourth album
since 1999, with a lot of work on the side. Trio with Reuben
Rogers on bass and Eric Harland on drums; augmented by tenor
saxophonist Mark Turner on three cuts, getting a bit lift on
the opener, "Canción por la Unidad Latinoamericana," and on
"Aze's Blues" -- one of 4 (of 10) originals. Covers scattered
from Mandel to Monk, Jobim to Stevie Wonder, with the title
track from Omer Avital.
B+(*)

Avery Sharpe Trio: Live (2008 [2010], JKNM):
Bassist, built his career on long turns with McCoy Tyner and
Yusef Lateef, each honored with a song here. Ninth album since
1988. Group is a trio with Onaje Alan Gumbs on piano and Winard
Harper on drums. Three originals by Sharpe, one by Gumbs, one
more cover: "My Favorite Things."
B+(*)

Dr. Lonnie Smith: Spiral (2010, Palmetto):
Organ player, b. 1942, has twenty-some albums since 1967 with
a big gap from 1979 to 1993. Fourth album with Palmetto, a
trio, with Jonathan Kreisberg, who's found a seductive niche
on guitar, and Jamire Williams on drums. First cut is from
another Smith, Jimmy, setting out the basic funk parameters.
Gets a substantial sound when he slows it down, too.
B+(**)

John Escreet: Don't Fight the Inevitable (2010,
Mythology): Pianist, from England, b. 1984, studied at Manhattan
School of Music, based in Brooklyn; second album, like 2008's
Consequences a quintet with Ambrose Akinmusire on trumpet,
David Binney on alto sax, Matt Brewer on bass, and Nasheet Waits
on drums (replacing Tyshawn Sorey). Ambitious, aggressive stuff,
especially out the chute with the horns pumping each other up.
First play I found that exhilarating; second play annoying. Gets
more complicated later on, for better or worse.
B+(*)

Paul Carr: Straight Ahead Soul (2010, Paul Carr
Jazz): Texas tenor, b. 1961, studied at Texas Southern University
and Howard, based in DC. Got his blues tone but doesn't indulge
in much honking, and plays a little soprano which doesn't sound
Texas at all. With Bobby Broom on guitar, Allyn Johnson on piano,
Michael Bowie on bass, and Lewis Nash on drums, all filling the
straight ahead formula, plus a little Chelsea Green viola that
goes somewhere else. Willard Jenkins wrote the notes, bringing
up Arnett Cobb. For what it's worth, Cobb's Party Time
has been stuck in my bedroom machine for the last month or two:
a wonderful record, never fails to pick me up.
B+(**)

The Mark Lomax Trio: The State of Black America
(2007 [2010], Inarhyme): Drummer, b. 1979, from Columbus, OH;
describes himself as "the Quincy Jones of his generation";
first group, 1999, was called Blacklist, their first album
Blacklisted; trio has a previous gospel-themed album,
Lift Every Voice!; this one has originals titled
"Stuck in a Rut," "The Unknown Self," "The Power of Knowing,"
and "To Know God Is to Know Thy Self" (well, also "Blues for
Charles"). None of that prepared me for this record, a sax
trio, with unknowns Dean Hulett on bass and Edwin Bayard on
tenor. First approximation on Bayard is that he sounds a lot
like David S. Ware, and I mean a lot.
A-

Freddy Cole: Freddy Cole Sings Mr. B (2010,
High Note): Nat's baby brother recalls Billy Eckstine. Makes
me wonder how many people today can recall sauve Nat, much
less the debonair Eckstine, let alone relate to him. He had
a deep, rich baritone, an exceptional example of a style that
many 1940s singers aspired to, but which seems old fashioned,
stuffy even, today. Nat, on the other hand, sounds as hip
today as he did before rock and roll, and Freddy had the
same voice, at least until he aged enough to differentiate
it. But in applying the old/new Cole treatment to Eckstine's
songbook, he achieves a remarkable synthesis. Houston Person
joins in on 7 of 12 songs, lifting each, not that Cole can't
get by on John Di Martino's piano and Randy Napoleon's guitar.
A-

Ran Blake/Christine Correa: Out of the Shadows
(2009 [2010], Red Piano): Internet down as I play/write this,
so research is limited (and error-prone). Blake, of course, is
the well known pianist, b. 1935, with at least 35 albums since
1961, including collaborations with vocalist Jeanne Lee --
Short Life of Barbara Monk is one of his (and their)
best-known albums. Correa is a vocalist I've bumped into a
couple of times, mostly with pianist Frank Carlberg (if memory
serves, her husband). Rather difficult on both ends, with
Blake's blockish piano interesting but providing little
support, leaving Correa to wing it, which she does with
admirable gusto.
B+(*)

Ran Blake/Sara Serpa: Camera Obscura (2009 [2010],
Inner Circle Music): Another Ran Blake piano-vocal duo. Serpa was
born in Lisbon, Portugal; studied at New England Conservatory, where
she ran into Blake; based in New York now. More songwise than Blake's
album with Christine Correa; Serpa seems to draw out Blake's support,
where Correa was more intent on challenging him.
B+(**) [Sept. 1]

Peter Brötzmann/Paal Nilssen-Love: Woodcuts (2008
[2010], Smalltown Superjazz): Sax-drums duo, or when Brötzmann
decides to cut your ears some slack he switches to bass clarinet
or Bb-clarinet (but no tarogato this time). Nilssen-Love has a
bunch of these duos in his discography now, including a previous
one with Brötzmann (Sweet Sweat), others with Joe McPhee,
John Butcher, Hĺkon Kornstad, Mats Gustafsson, and especially
Ken Vandermark. Seems about par for the course, noisy, exciting,
wearing.
B+(**)

Lean Left: The Ex Guitars Meet Nilssen-Love/Vandermark
Duo, Volume 1 (2008 [2010], Smalltown Superjazz): Maybe
artist name and title should be switched. "Ex Guitars" are Andy
Moor and Terrie Ex of the Dutch mostly-rock group The Ex, which
started much like the Mekons but instead of going country-folk
hung out with African noise bands and avant-jazzers. Drummer
Paal Nilssen-Love and Ken Vandermark (tenor sax, Bb clarinet)
have five or six albums as a duo, many more in larger configs,
and in fact many Vandermark albums have been multi-band mash-ups
along such lines. Cut live at Bimhuis. Liner suggests that
Vandermark couldn't hear himself over the guitars although he
was aware of blowing his lungs out; no problem, the sax is loud
and clear here (especially loud). The guitars are less obvious,
cutting in and out with harmonic strings and blasts of distortion.
While the rockers are ripping up the sonic landscape, the jazz
vanguardists rock out, with Vandermark riffing heavy and the
drummer tying it all together. Three short pieces and one long
at 27:26 for an intense bit over 41 minutes.
A-

Ketil Bjřrnstad: Remembrance (2009 [2010], ECM):
Norwegian pianist, b. 1952, has recorded with ECM at least since
1994. Leads a trio here, with Tore Brunborg on tenor sax and Jon
Christensen on drums -- all three were previously in Masqualero,
along with Arild Andersen and Nils Petter Molvaer if memory serves.
One title piece in eleven parts.
B+(***)

Billy Bang: Prayer for Peace (2005 [2010], TUM):
No idea how this set, recorded in New York half a decade ago,
came to this Finish label, but the packaging, artwork, and full
biographies are all pluses. The group has an interesting balance,
with pianist Andrew Bemkey and trumpeter James Zollar as prominent
as the violinist -- also with Todd Nicholson on bass and Newman
Taylor-Baker on drums. Starts off with a sprightly Stuff Smith
piece, a mood that returns with the only other non-Bang cover,
an Afro-Cuban piece from Compay Segundo. Title track seems to
drag a bit, but before long its slow build turns elegiac. Not
at his strongest or most consistent, but a thrill nonetheless,
with Zollar more than picking up the slack.
A-

Bo van de Graaf: Sold Out: 25 Soundtracks (2009
[2010], Icdisc): Dutch saxophonist, has contributed to the notion
that the Dutch avant-garde has as much to do with comedy as with
music, although the funniest things here are the titles: "Cat on
a hot thin roof," "Ascenseur pour un escargot," "Lost tanga in
Paris," "Et Depardieu créa la femme," "The gossip father,"
"Koyaanisquatsch," "For your legs only," and the 26th cut,
disguised as a "bonus track" so as not to dispute the title,
"Silence of the lamps (suite)." Would be more fun -- not the
same thing as funnier -- if he played more sax, but only 6 of
26 cuts get that treatment. Mostly he hacks out melodies on
electric keyboards with samples, and employs a few helpers for
bits trumpet, harmonica, english horn, and to voice some Anna
Akhmatova words.
B

Cochemea Gastelum: The Electric Sound of Johnny Arrow
(2010, Mowo!): Sax player; have him listed on alto first, but plays
more tenor here, more baritone than that, more "electric sax" than
anything, with flute a close second, bass clarinet, all sorts of
keyboards, vibes, drums and percussion. First album, has some studio
work with pop stars like Amy Winehouse (also Sharon Jones, Angelique
Kidjo, New Pornographers), and funk-oriented jazzbos -- Robert Walter,
Will Bernard, Melvin Sparks, Reuben Wilson (also something called
Phat Jam in Milano listed under Archie Shepp). This one was
co-produced by Mocean Worker, who contributed "bips & baps" as
well as most of the bass. Beatwise funk, takes off when Elizabeth
Pupo-Walker turns on her congas, stalls when the velocity drops too
much.
B+(*)

Tia Fuller: Decisive Steps (2010, Mack Avenue):
Alto saxophonist, also plays some soprano, b. 1976 in Aurora, CO;
third album since 2005. Toured for a while with Beyoncé, but her
jazz ambitions certainly aren't pop -- she's more like a younger
generation Kenny Garrett, a mainstream player who can turn up the
heat and draw on deep well of Coltrane antics. Band includes her
sister Shamie Royston on piano, Miriam Sullivan on bass, and Kim
Thompson on drums; guests include Sean Jones on trumpet/flugelhorn,
Christian McBride, and tap dancer Maruice Chestnut.
B+(**)

Steve Cardenas: West of Middle (2009 [2010],
Sunnyside): Guitarist, from Kansas City, based in New York;
third album since 2000; lots of side credits since 1991,
notably with Ben Allison and Paul Motian. Trio here, with
Allison returning the favor at bass, and Rudy Royston on
drums. Nice leads, but still strikes me as a first rate
sideman.
B+(**)

Lena Horne: Sings: The M-G-M Singles (1946-48
[2010], Verve/Hip-O Select): The first black actress granted
a Hollywood contract, she was gorgeous in ways that transcended
race -- her ancestors reportedly included slaveholders like
John C. Calhoun as well as slaves, with a little American
Indian mixed in along the way -- and a pretty good standards
singer. Her "Stormy Weather" was a hit in 1943, the title of
an MGM musical, and not included here although it seems like
it should fit. This picks up a bit later. The house orchestra
is completely ordinary, and more than half of the songs you
no doubt know from Billie Holiday and/or Ella Fitzgerald.
Horne wasn't in their class, but the best songs here -- "A
Foggy Day (in London Town)" and "The Lady Is a Tramp" are
two -- are completely satisfying.
B+(***)

Nikki Yanofsky: Nikki (2010, Decca): Standards
singer, from Montreal, b. 1994, which makes her 16 or probably
15 when she recorded this, her second album following a 2008
CD/DVD combo called Ella . . . of Thee I Swing. Produced
by Phil Ramone and Jesse Harris. Didn't bother digging through
the fine print to see who all's playing. No doubt she can belt
the songs out -- a plus on "Take the 'A' Train" and "On the
Sunny Side of the Street" and "Mr. Paganini" but not so much
on "Over the Rainbow." While the Ella and Billie songs don't
match up, at least they swing. The less obvious pieces don't
reveal much of anything, even fandom.
B

Eleni Karaindrou: Dust of Time (2008 [2009],
ECM New Series): Pianist, specializes in composing for films,
with seven albums on ECM since 1991, hard to tell how much
more. This one is for a film by Theo Angelopoulos. Booklet
has lots of pictures, presumably from the film. Mostly strings,
some orchestral, but with a delicate touch, soft, easy flow,
poignant.
B+(**)

No final grades/notes this week on records put back for further
listening the first time around.

Howard Wiley and the Angola Project: 12 Gates to the City (HNIC Music): Oct. 19

Norma Winstone: Stories Yet to Tell (ECM): advance, Aug. 31

Movie Weekend

Two movie weekend, the first time I can remember that happening
in a long, long time. Indeed, can't remember the last time we even
saw a movie. (Checking back in the notebook, I see I did some movie
posts in April.) Good ones, too.

Movie: The Secret in Their Eyes [El secreto de sus ojos]:
Argentinian film, set in 1999 when a recently retired crime investigator
decides to write a book about a 1974 rape-murder, cutting back and forth
to trace the crime and investigation then and unravel a few last details
still unclear. The murderer was caught and confessed, then was let out
of jail by higher-ups as he was employed in Argentina's Dirty War. In
fact, the murderer turns the tables and pursues the investigator, who
flees Buenos Aires for a safe country retreat, at least until the junta
fell and democracy was restored. Not much on the Dirty War directly, so
it helps to know some history. Some interesting discussion of the death
penalty. Won Oscar for Best Foreign Film.
A-

Movie: Cyrus: Small film gets by on actors and more
or less improv dialogue. John C. Reilly is divorced from Catherine
Keener, who graciously struggles to help him get over it. Doesn't
much work until he stumbles across Marisa Tomei, who is starved for
the attention Reilly offers, mostly because she's smothered by her
21-year-old unweened son, Jonah Hill. He feels the rivalry and sets
out to subvert the budding relationship in a guerrilla war with
O'Reilly. Works out, sort of.
A-

Belatedly caught up with Yes Man [B] and The Invention
of Lying [A-]. Jonah Hill had one of many good small parts in
the latter. Again, words are key; goodwill too.

Zero Tolerance

Glenn Greenwald: The heroism of Shirley Sherrod:
I was forced offline for the last half of last week, so missed
this story as it unrolled. Sherrod is black, married to a well
known civil rights leader, works for the Agriculture Dept. She
gave a speech. Someone named Andrew Breitbart extracted a line
from its context, turned on its head, and splattered it across
the nation's fickle consciousness as an example of the Obama
government's anti-white racism. Obama and Ag. Sec. Tom Vilsack
took Fox News at its word, didn't bother to check the facts, and
fired Sherrod -- the latest example in fascist politico-world's
zero-tolerance clampdown on politically incorrect speech. As it
turns out, this one was such a total crock that Vilsack and
Obama wound up back-pedalling, offering Sherrod her job back.
One reason was that the "white farmer" she referred to was plum
thankful that she had saved his farm. Another embarrassment for
Obama, once again caused by his willingness to concede the issue
space to the right. The charge itself should have been a tip-off:
few problems in America are more inconsequential than anti-white
racism, and virtually the only people who worry about it mostly
worry because they expect some retribution for their own racism.

Bush Revivalism

Ryan McNeely: Texas Fried Conservatism:
Of all the things that Obama has or hasn't done since the 2008
election, the one that annoys me most -- partly because it's so
obvious, so consistent with his mandate, and so much within his
power to act -- is his failure to put a stake into what little
was left of George W. Bush's political reputation. Back then
Bush's approval ratings were stuck in the 20% range, and even
that most likely owed much to presidential deference. Virtually
everything Bush did in his eight years in office was wrong --
more often than not, deeply, profoundly, mind-bogglingly wrong;
so wrong one's tempted to call it evil, except that he poisoned
that well too. Moreover, Bush's policies and acts were not just
wrong in principle and in practice; they left a vast legacy of
problems that would overwhelm and threaten to capsize his own
term. He needed to drive home the fact that those problems were
Bush problems, not just to buy time to work them through but to
make sure that the American people understood what they were
facing and why.

He could have done that three ways. One was to go out and talk
about what happened and why, to constantly reinforce the message
about Bush's malfeasances. Another, which would flow out of the
first, is that he could have pushed for thorough investigations
of the Bush administration, especially of conflicts of interest
and more/less legal influence peddling. (At the very least, this
would have alerted him to the MMS cronyism that was exposed only
after BP's deepwater oil well blew up.) Finally, he could have
routinely broke from Bush administration policies, especially in
the security and injustice sector. Instead, he's so routinely
continued Bush's policies that they've often become pinned on
him.

Now, we're seeing the first efforts at not just rehabilitating
but canonizing Bush's presidency -- something that should have
been rendered impossible by exposing what actually happened. It
may even work: after all, they've had plenty of practice dusting
off and spiffing up Ronald Reagan's criminal regime. (Back in the
day I frequently quipped that America's only growth industry is
fraud -- not just because of the unseemly number of apparatchiks
who got caught but because the whole "greed is good" ethos soaked
into the culture, breeding in the soon-bankrupted S&Ls, the
leveraged buyout craze, and well beyond, all the way to George
W. Bush.) The old adage about those who forget history are bound
to repeat it takes on extra urgency here. By failing to make the
Bush history unforgettable, Obama does worse than run the risk
of yet another return; he may even slip unconsciously into the
Bush form, repeating it himself.

Paul Krugman: Redo That Voodoo:
Taxes and deficits are a case in point. At least back in Reagan's
time they bothered to concoct a hare-brained theory to argue that
cutting taxes would increase tax revenues, as if their aim was to
grow government. That failed, but nothing they couldn't mythologize
around. Bush's tax cuts and war spending did exactly what Reagan's
did: mushroom the federal deficit, leading to cries for slashing
public services and special favors for the rich. Now, of course,
the insatiable rich want even more -- not just for themselves,
but they'd like to see everyone else pinched by more austerity
too, so even if they can't make more at least they'll feel better
about it. One thing you should recall is that one of Obama's
campaign promises was to repeal the Bush tax cuts -- one that
he hasn't lifted a finger to accomplish. The political calculus
now is to let them quietly expire, but in doing so he misses a
golden opportunity to pin the deficits on the main cause: Bush.

Music Week

Fred Anderson/DKV Trio (1996 [1997], Okka Disk):
Looked up Anderson after his recent passing and notice that I had
never given this a grade, even though I made an effort to tie up
all the loose ends in my Ken Vandermark listings -- DKV is Hamid
Drake, Kent Kessler, and Ken Vandermark. Cut shortly after the
AACM founder/Velvet Lounge proprietor resumed his career as a
hair-raising tenor saxophonist -- about the time he started
collecting social security checks -- with his protégé Drake a
common denominator. The slashing sax play isn't exceptional but
is enjoyable enough; solo stretches are eloquent despite also
being not that exceptional.
B+(*)

Jazz Prospecting (CG #24, Part 6)

Horrible week. Don't know where to begin, but hope it ends
soon. Was surprised that I had enough Jazz Prospecting to post.
Not sure if the glut of (**) records was symptom or cause --
one side effect of having already used up all of my space for
the next Jazz CG is that I'm more conscious of good records
that I know I'm not going to have room or interest for, and
that's where such records land. For what little it's worth,
the pecking order: Dosh, Rypdal, Christie, Cohen, Corpolongo,
Manricks, Tibbetts.

Laurie Anderson: Homeland (2010, Nonesuch):
A rather dreary album, at least partly by intent, which raises
such big and serious questions I'm tempted to grade it up if
only to get a hearing. Some songs are worth hearing more for
didactic purposes than listening enjoyment -- "Another Day in
America" and "Dark Time in the Revolution" are two. Only one
is flat-out brilliant: "Only an Expert" is not only deep but
quickens the pace to drive its points home. Others I'm likely
to remain unsettled over, including four murky ones at the
beginning. Ambitious, distinctive, thoughtful, clever, unique;
still, I find it sitting on my year-end list right below Kesha,
its polar opposite.
B+(***) [advance]

Stevens, Siegel & Ferguson Trio: Six
(2008 [2010], Konnex): Piano trio, with Memphis-based Michael
Jefry Stevens forgoing alphabetical order for once to claim
first dibs on a record. Siegel is drummer Jeff, nicknamed
"Siege," which leads to all sorts of typographical errors.
Ferguson, Tim, plays bass. Both contribute a pair of originals;
Stevens just places one. The other five cuts are old standards
("Straight No Chaser" on the fence there), given pleasantly
straightforward readings.
B+(*)

Rich Corpolongo Trio: Get Happy (2009 [2010],
Delmark): Tenor saxophonist, b. 1941 in Chicago, parents from
Italy. Third album on Delmark, the first two dating from 1996
and 1998 with Corpolongo playing alto and soprano sax but no
tenor. All three have upbeat titles -- Just Found Joy
and Smiles -- but his playing is serious, sober mainstream,
spare and muscular with just bass (Dan Shapera) and drums (Rusty
Jones), with Charlie Parker tunes fore and aft, standards in
between including the title tune, "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams,"
and "Body and Soul."
B+(**)

Terje Rypdal: Crime Scene (2009 [2010], ECM):
Guitarist, b. 1947, part of the George Russell generation of
Norwegian jazz musicians; started in rock and gravitated in
and out of fusion over the years. Shows some of that here,
but the album, a concert recording at Nattjazz Festival in
Bergen, veers wildly about with a range of things I can't
add up much less reconcile: scattered vocal samples assembled
by drummer Paolo Vinaccia; free-ranging trumpet by Palle
Mikkelborg; grungy organ by Stĺle Storlřkken; and occasional
earth rumbling from the 17-piece Bergen Big Band. Each of
these things are interesting. (Surprised to find him dropped
from the 9th ed. of The Penguin Guide, along with 18
records, all on ECM, very likely all still in print.)
B+(**)

Steve Tibbetts: Natural Causes (2008 [2010],
ECM): Guitarist, b. 1954, from Minnesota, had an eponymous
album in 1976 and now has eight ECM albums from 1980, the
last three following 6-, 8-, and 8-year breaks. Also credited
with piano, kalimba, and bouzouki -- not sure whether they
are minor here or just subtly layered, as the hype sheet
suggests. Marc Anderson adds percussion, but there is little
more to it: quiet, measured, slips by all to easily.
B+(**)

Retta Christie: With David Evans & Dave Frishberg,
Volume 2 (2009 [2010], Retta): Singer, b. 1959 in Astoria,
OR. Second album, following Volume 1 all the way down to
the cover art, given a different tint here. Standards, but not
too standard: notes place most of them in the 1920s and 1930s
with a Mills Brothers hit from 1944 not so far an outlier.
Evans plays sax and clarinet; is a treat on both, especially
the latter. Frishberg limits himself to piano -- he's a notable
singer in his own right, but plays this one close to the vest.
B+(**)

Avishai Cohen: Aurora (2008 [2010], Blue Note/EMI
Music): Israeli bassist, b. 1970 (many sites say 1971, but Cohen's
own say 1970), established his jazz career in New York but seems to
be based in Israel now. Eleventh record since 1998, carries a small
Blue Note label as well as EMI Music, but was recorded on France
and isn't on Blue Note's US schedule -- hype sheet gives April 27
as release date. Plays electric as well as acoustic, has a piano
credit and sings most of the songs, with Karen Malka joining in
here and there. Band includes Shai Maestro on piano/wurlitzer,
Amos Hoffman on oud, and Itamar Doari on percussion. Several songs
derive from Ladino folk sources, although most are originals.
Vocals are slight, amateurish; arrangements are slow, with a
baroque feel -- hype sheet cites Bach counterpoint, as well as
pointing out that his Ladino was sharpened playing in New York
latin ensembles.
B+(**)

Jacám Manricks: Trigonometry (2009 [2010],
Posi-Tone): Saxophonist, not specified but plays alto in his
photos and has played soprano in the past; based in New York,
teaches at Manhattan School of Music; bio doesn't provide
details like when/where born, how he got to New York, etc.
One previous album, last year's Labyrinth, also an
impressive disc. Wrote all but a Dolphy piece. Postbop, has
a loquacious tone, gets solid support from Gary Versace on
piano and Obed Calvaire on drums, and occasional front line
help from Scott Wendholt (trumpet) and Alan Ferber (trombone).
Sorry for the grade rut, but I can't budge this up or down.
[PS: Looks like he started out in Australia.]
B+(**)

Ray Vega & Thomas Marriott: East-West Trumpet Summit
(2009 [2010], Origin): Marriott's from Seattle; Vega's from the Bronx.
Marriott thanks God in the notes here; Vega thanks Jesus. Presumably
Vega's the hot one here -- play with Ray Barretto and Tito Puente and
you learn to crank it up a couple notches. Each has a moderate pile of
albums. Both can play but neither makes a very distinctive impression.
Together they put together as hot a trumpet album as I've heard in a
while.
B+(*)

Gregory Porter: Water (2009 [2010], Motema):
Vocalist, based in Brooklyn, first album. Wrote 6 of 11 songs;
one called "1960 What?" on the Detroit riot is a choice cut,
partly because he beefs up the horn section (three trumpets
and trombone), partly because he doesn't try to constrain his
cool. On the other hand, standards like "Skylark" and "But
Beautiful" are really tightened down.
B+(*)

Dosh: Tommy (2008-09 [2010], Anticon): Full
name: Martin Dosh, from Minneapolis. Fifth record since 2003,
all on Anticon, which is generally an underground hip-hop label,
very underground. This one is more post-rock ambient electronica,
reminiscent of Brian Eno's Another Green World at times,
but not as blessed, not just because it's a bit noisier.
B+(**) [advance]

Oscar Feldman: Oscar e Familia (2009, Sunnyside):
Alto saxophonist, b. 1961 in Argentina, based in New York, has
one previous album in 1999. Wrote most of the pieces, one with
Guillermo Klein, one by Klein alone, and one each by Wayne Shorter,
Astor Piazzolla, and Hermeto Pascoal. Core group features Manuel
Valera on piano, John Benitez on bass, Antonio Sanchez on drums,
and Pernell Saturnino on percussion, although he also taps Pablo
Aslan (bass) on four cuts, Diego Urcola (trumpet, trombone),
Mark Turner (tenor sax), Tito Castro (bandoneon), Cuartetango
String Quartet (two cuts), and others. Fierce sax and roiling
percussion will remind you of Gato Barbieri's early "chapters."
B+(***)

Margret: Com Vocę (2010, Sunnyside): Last name
Grebowicz, from Texas, probably based in New York now although
hype sheet says she teaches philosophy at Goucher College in
Baltimore. Website refers to band as Com Vocę, but hype sheet
gives Margret as artist name, Com Vocę as album title.
She/they have a 2007 album, Candeias, under Com Vocę.
Band isn't really applicable on this album anyway: Margret
sings on all tracks, but only has Ben Monder (guitar) on one
track, Matvei Sigalov (guitar) on another, Monder and Scott
Colley (bass) on a third; tenor saxophonist Stan Killian, who
seems to be her senior collaborator, only appears on 3 of 9
tracks. Only 3 of 9 songs have Brazilian roots, but she does
a fair Astrud Gilberto impression, especially on the sweetly
synthetic "Call Me."
B

No final grades/notes this week on records put back for further
listening the first time around.

When Bad Ideas Are Better Than Nothing

Paul Woodward: A one-state solution from the Israeli right:
Every now and then someone from the Israeli right admits a willingness
to grant Israeli citizenship to a lot more Palestinians in order to
secure the entire West Bank as permanent Israeli territory. (What
happens to Gaza is never made clear, but it is already viewed as a
wasteland, so presumably would be sloughed off.) All sorts of bad
things could be rolled into such a "solution": the return of any
Palestinian refugees would be ruled out; even with "citizenship"
much of the West Bank could remain under military rule for decades
(as happened within the Green Line from 1948-67), curtailing the
legal rights of "citizenship"; social and economic discrimination
is likely to persist indefinitely; moreover, the right is likely
to use the influx of Palestinian "citizens" as an excuse to chip
away at the rights that "Palestinian citizens of Israel" already
have. Gaza would be orphaned, perhaps still under siege, subject
to controls and periodic mass punishment. Lebanon and Syria would
still be viewed as hostile states, with Israel holding the Golan
Heights and continuing to hold large numbers of Lebanese prisoners
while Israel seeks to back Hezbollah down by threatening the whole
country. In short, a right-wing "one state solution" is likely to
look a lot like the status quo.

This raises a real question. Anyone can think of lots of ways
to sort out the conflict, but the only way that is going to happen
is one that Israel itself decides upon -- i.e., a settlement that
that not only favors Israel over the Palestinians but that indulges
Israeli fears and fantasies. So the question is: what's the worst
possible settlement that both sides are likely to accept? It's a
tough question, mostly because Israel's politicos and security
honchos don't really want any solution -- they're quite happy to
fight on indefinitely, and in any case would be hard pressed to
agree on just what they are fighting for. But it's also tough for
the Palestinians, who on the one hand have already conceded an
awful lot, and on the other are basing their claims on justice,
which sets some minimal standards for what they can accept.

I've made several sketches of how this can be resolved, and
they've all been unwelcome. For instance, knowing that Jerusalem
is a particularly emotional issue for most Israelis, I outlined
a scheme whereby Israel could legitimately annex Jerusalem,
leaving Gaza and the rest of the West Bank for an independent
Palestinian state. (The key here would be for the Palestinians
in East Jerusalem to ratify the annexation, which would only
happen if Israel assumed its best behavior toward them -- a
win-win scenario as far as I'm concerned, although before any
such thing happened you'd hear a lot about "the third holiest
city in Islam" and all that.)

As I was reading Kai Bird's Crossing Mandelbaum Gate:
Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978,
I flashed on another even more indulgent scheme. Bird makes
a big point about how the conflict would have been reduced
had the Palestinians succeeded in deposing King Hussein and
turning Jordan into the Palestinian state -- he sees this
as a major missed opportunity, given that before 1967 and
even after Jordan had a Palestinian majority and that the
Hashemite monarchy was nothing more than a British invention
later subsidized by the CIA. Lots of prominent Israelis had
toyed with the Jordan = New Palestine idea, although they
usually wanted it both ways -- a nominal Palestinian state
still ruled by trusty old King Hussein. But one reason they
never went through with this scheme is that deep down Israel
can't abide the existence of a Palestinian state: any such
state would memorialize the original sin of Israel's creation.
So how about this: Israel turns Gaza over to Egypt as an UN
mandate; Egypt assumes responsibility for security and holds
the international pursestrings to rebuild Gaza, but otherwise
allows Gaza to be run as an autonomous UN-certified democracy;
Gaza would in the future (say, ten years) have the option of an
independence referendum, but in the meantime Egypt also offers
Gazans (including Palestinian refugees) citizenship, freedom
to resettle in Egypt, and all such rights as Egyptian citizens
have (such as they are). Egypt isn't obligated to become more
democratic, although that would be a welcome direction. This
way Israel relinquishes its occupation without establishing a
Palestinian state. Same thing with Jordan and the West Bank,
although it's less clear where Israel draws the borderline --
what is clear is that it will be Israel drawing the border --
perhaps along its notorious "security fence."

So would that be acceptable? Israel would gain a small amount
of critical territory, and would get rid of a large number of
Palestinians. The resulting Israel could be more equitable and
less beligerent, or not. Israel wouldn't be assured of immediate
recognition as with the Saudi/Arab League Green Line proposal,
but would be in a better position to work those out. Israel
already has working security relationships with both Egypt and
Jordan, and Egypt has a proven track record of helping Israel
to pen up Gaza. One would have to insist that any Palestinians
living on land that Israel kept be given full and meaningful
citizenship rights. Also that the refugees be given compensation,
since they are otherwise screwed -- not that they aren't now
anyway. Maybe you could insist on some protocols for dealing
with border incidents and acts of terrorism -- which must, by
the way, include Israel's assassination networks. Something
should be done about Lebanon and Syria. The former is easily
resolved by returning Shaba Farms and the Lebanese prisoners
Israel holds hostage; the latter involves a more substantial
piece of real estate and its watershed. (Perhaps the answer
there is for Israel to purchase most of the land and water;
Syria would obtain a lot of badly needed cash and get off of
America's shit list.)

Or maybe Israel's right insists on keeping all of the West
Bank, in which case an acceptable deal would have to safeguard
Palestinian rights within a democratic Israel. This is tougher
because it gets deeper into Israel's knitting, but there has
to be some quid pro quo to get everyone to agree that we have
a solution, and that international recognition -- basically
the removal of Israel's pariah state stain -- is what Israel
stands to gain. For instance, with the Palestinians satisfied,
the conflict with Iran -- its alleged nuclear threat, the thing
that Israel is supposedly so dreadfully worried over -- goes
away.

I can't pretend that these proposals are any better than lots
of other proposals. Were I a Zionist, I'm pretty sure that I'd
think that the Arab League two-state proposal would be a damn
good deal: in particular, there's no need to quibble and no
chance of ill feelings if you simply accept the other side's
offer. It would allow Israel to go right on being the paranoid
racist state it has become yet would extricate itself from a
state of perpetual debilitating conflict. Not being a Zionist,
and being committed to justice, I'm inclined to be more generous:
I'd prefer a secular, multicultural state providing generous
support for resettling as many refugees as want to return. And
if I were an Arab, I'd support a Law of Return, which inside
Israel is a symbol of national discrimination, but outside of
Israel undercuts the logic and imputed necessity of an exclusive
Jewish national homeland. But the fact is I'd settle for almost
anything that reduces conflict and allows all parties to live
with respect and dignity.

The best solutions are based on things that at least in
principle we can all agree on: equality, human rights, dignity,
freedom. The more you carve out special exceptions to universal
rights, the more trouble you cause, the more people you leave
behind, the more resentment builds. Agreements may be dictated
by relative power, but effective agreements are built on mutual
respect. If Israel wanted to solve its conflict it would take
pains to make its offer as generous as possible, to bind in as
much consensus as possible. That hasn't happened for reasons
deeply embedded in its national psyche -- Israel has trained
itself to trust only its own power, so it sees any compromise
as debilitating, and therefore they never offer any solution.
Still, everyone else in the world needs to see this conflict
come to some sort of resolution. (The Palestinians have offered
all kinds of proposals, adjusting them as they grow weary and
find force to be useless, but they are never deemed acceptable
because they refuse to compromise on the basic issue of dignity;
they are left with the one thing Israel cannot take from them,
the ability to refuse surrender.) So we're left here, mulling
over not just solutions that would do right but all sorts of
hackneyed notions that while distasteful might ultimately be
considered not so intolerable.

Israel's right has successfully managed to derail the common
"two-state solution" that Americans (including Clinton, Obama,
and even Bush) fancy, so when they do float a conceivable idea --
anything involving full citizen rights is at least conceivably
workable -- it's worth taking seriously, probably not as a
coherent proposal but at least as opening a door that until
now has remained rigidly shut.

Paul Woodward: One state/two states: rethinking Israel and Palestine:
Another vector moving in this same direction, quoting Abu-Zayda on his
thinking why the "two states" dogma has become counterproductive. One
irony is that it was only a year or two ago when Alan Dershowitz declared
that any talk about "one state" should axiomatically be discarded as a
non-starter; now we find several scattered instances of people arguing
the exact opposite: that "two state" talk is nothing more than a formula
for extending the conflict endlessly. (Which, by the way, does seem to
be Dershowitz's agenda.)

I've collected a good selection of quotes from Kai Bird's
Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs
and Israelis, 1956-1978 (2010, Scribners) on the
book page.
It's a rather idiosyncratic book in several respects: the
personal interest breaks with the usual sense of balance,
although the final third synthesizes balance in a rather
unique way; the time frame essentially ignores the last 30
years -- the wars in Lebanon, the Intifada, the Oslo Accords,
Ariel Sharon -- which by now is most of what you know about
the conflict. (The PFLP hijackings in the 1970s are prominently
featured in the book, but compared to the suicide bombings of
the Al-Aqsa Intifada seem almost quaint.) On the other hand
one tends to forget how tenaciously belligerent Ben-Gurion
was, or how poorly King Hussein served the Palestinian cause
that he occasionally gave lip service to. Even in working in
his wife's family's holocaust stories, Bird sticks with the
particulars and avoids generalizations.

Blue Dog

Dion Lefler: Goyle pushes bipartisan solutions:
Kansas politics has regularly been hitting new lows this year.
With elected governor Kathleen Sebelius safely tucked away in
Obama's cabinet -- taking her away from an open senate contest
she was heavily favored for; after all, as long as Obama's in
the white house, who needs electable Democrats running for other
offices? -- the current Kansas governor was elected lieutenant
governor as a Democrat but was previously chairman of the state
Republican party. Still, even he has frustrated the state lege
from passing America's most draconian anti-abortion bills, so
Sam Brownback is giving up his senate seat to do his duty in
Topeka. Meanwhile, two of Kansas's three Republican congressmen
are running for Brownback's senate seat, or for a cushy job as
a corporate lobbyist, whichever comes last -- see Crowson's
cartoon for a glimpse at how that's going. Tanker Todd, who's
been my hands-down pick for worst member of congress for 16
straight years now, is pretty certain to lose the vote, and
win back his job as a Boeing corporate flunky, no doubt with
a big payday -- especially if the tanker deal he's devoted so
much of his life to comes through.

That leaves Tiahrt's seat vacant, with a wide open Republican
primary between Florida multimillionaire Wink Hartman and Tiahrt
crony Mike Pompeo, with a couple of minor candidates way short
of money -- Jean Schodorf, one of the saner Republicans around,
is likely to finish a distant third. On the Democratic side the
probable candidate is Raj Goyle, an impressive (and impressively
well funded) campaigner to picked off a pretty safe Republican
state senate seat a few years back. One interesting point here
is that Goyle seems to have raised more money thus far than any
of the Republicans -- Hartman is real close, but that's mostly
because he's taking money from one pocket and putting it into
the other. Especially interesting, given that Tiahrt typically
out-raised his opponents by 10-to-1. On the other hand, Goyle
is running his campaign so far to the right that he practically
belongs in the same strip as Tiahrt and Moran. Of the two state
senators in this election, the one who voted to stave off the
latest anti-abortion travesty wasn't Goyle; it was Schodorf.

The link above gives you a quick rundown on Goyle's campaign.
(For more on the money, see
here.)
Goyle is "proud to be a fiscal conservative." He voted against a
regressive sales tax hike that was the only way the governor could
keep the state government from collapsing. He thinks all it's going
to take to get the economy going again is tax cuts and small business
loans. His yap on closing tax loopholes that export jobs amounts to
nothing. If anyone really wanted to halt the offshoring of jobs, the
thing to do would be to balance the trade deficit, not the budget.

Other than the budget balancing, there's little of substance to
say about Goyle. He's smart, ambitious, flexible, opportunistic --
someone you can never trust or admire, but may wind up voting for
when facing a Republican like Hartman or Pompeo. He may even do
something worthwhile, but right now he's running to be the bluest
dog in Washington. Right now I'm not sure the aggravation is worth
it.

PS: The comments with few exceptions are appalling. Must
be the readers are getting into the spirit of the season.

Tax Dollars for Terrorism

Jason Ditz: US-Backed Jundallah Bombs Iran Mosque, Killing at Least 27:
When Obama took office 18 months ago, it seemed like burying the hatchet
with Iran would be a relatively straightforward thing to do. But Netanyahu
responded to Obama's feint toward the more intransigent Israel-Palestine
conflict with alarmist threats against Iran, which Obama thought he could
only bottle up by taking a more aggressive diplomatic course. Then there
was the Iranian elections and a long period of unrest following, where
Iran's conservatives and clerics clamped down on reformers -- many of
whom felt themselves to be more in tune with the 1979 Revolution than
were the established powers -- so that, too, backed Obama off, putting
even more emphasis on his sterile program of sanctions. Now, Netanyahu
is feeling cocky enough to push his belligerent tactics through American
military channels -- cheered on by Likudnik-inspired neocons like the
newly formed Emergency Committee for Israel. The idea of "preemptively"
attacking Iran is as criminally stupid now as it ever was. One cannot
imagine all of the ways such a misadventure could go wrong: it would
dramatically reinforce Iranian resolve to be able to defend themselves
with nuclear weapons, while at most inflicting a temporary setback;
it would destroy whatever credibility Obama still has in the world's
diplomatic circles. Iran would have an impeccable case to take to the
UN -- subject to a US veto, of course, another embarrassment. If Iran
chose to fight back, they could virtually stop oil tankers from the
Persian Gulf region, triggering another runup of world oil prices.
They could make life very uncomfortable for US troops in Iraq and
Afghanistan. The one threat they can't make is to Israel, which is
already itching for another fight with Hezbollah (and/or Hamas). It
is easy to see why Israel sees such an attack as win-win: the one
guaranteed result is that it will keep Israel away from the peace
table for years to come. Best of all, it would make the US as much
a pariah as Israel has already become.

What Jundallah has to do with this is sheer stupidity. Back in
1979 the Iranian Revolution embarrassed the Carter Administration
and, more importantly, the CIA that had put the Shah in power back
in 1953, opening up a period when the US was delighted to sell
advanced weapons and nuclear power plants to Iran. Ever since then
there have been agitators in the backwaters of the US security
system trying to irritate Iran -- Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech
back in 2003 was a high point in their crusade. One of their pet
schemes has always been to incite minorities to rebel against the
Tehran government, and the Balochi nationalist Jundallah group
has been a beneficiary of such scheming. Never mind that they're
nothing more than a terrorist group. Never mind that they also
attack our ally Pakistan. We're so consumed with hatred for Iran
that we're happy doing unto them what we'd never stand for them
doing unto us. But don't you think Obama should find this really
embarrassing? On the one hand, it shows how selective out "war
on terrorism" really is. On the other, it shows that however
high-minded our fears of Iran's nuclear program may be, deep
down all we really want to do is drag the Iranian people into
chaos and destruction.

Helena Cobban: Is an attack on Iran really more 'do-able' now?
and
More on America's pro-Israeli warmongers: Some background
info for the above. Joe Klein claims: "Israel has been brought
into the [U.S.] planning process, I'm told, because U.S. officials
are frightened by the possibility that the right-wing Netanyahu
government might go rogue and try to whack the Iranians on its
own." The fact remains that Israel would have to fly over
US-controled airspace to get to Iran and would probably need
US airbases to land at, so it's hard to see how they could "go
rogue" without US acquiescence. On the other hand, one of the
peculiar effects of Israel's handling of the Gaza flotilla is
that while it had been a public relations disaster in the world
at large, Israel has managed to stiffen up American political
support, making a new round of aggression possible.

Book Watch

Another batch of book notes, starting to drain the backlog I had
accumulated before my last post on June 25. Doesn't include a couple
of eagerly awaited forthcoming books: Andrew Bacevich: Washington
Rules: America's Path to Permanent War (Aug. 3), and Chalmers
Johnson: Dismantling the Empire: America's Last Best Hope
(Aug. 17). I've pre-ordered both.

Joseph Adler: R in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference
(paperback, 2009, O'Reilly): Presumably R is a free software version
of S, a very sophisticated programming language for statistics that
was developed at Bell Labs back around 1975. [Yes, see
here and
here.] Big (640 pp), pricey
($49.95), most likely worthwhile if you use it a lot. I think I'd
like to dabble, but haven't figured out how to break through. (I do
have an ancient S manual but never could afford the software. I may
even still have a videotape on a later commercial implementation of
S Plus.)

Dean Baker: Taking Economics Seriously (2010,
Boston Review Books): A prolific author of short books, one
more (136 pp), a basic primer, probably suffices for Econ 101,
but he focuses on especially relevant ideas. In particular, he
pushes for marginal cost pricing, which would take a lot of
hot air out of medical costs.

Gary S Becker/Richard A Posner: Uncommon Sense: Economic
Insights, from Marriage to Terrorism (2009, University of
Chicago Press): Mostly uncommon because it's mostly wrong. Leading
ideologues of the rational expectations cult reason their way
through all sorts of ordinary quandries. I read one section on
CEO pay and found that it wasn't even wrong because it never got
to a conclusion that could be disproved.

Peter Beinart: The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American
Hubris (2010, Harper): Another sermon on why bad things
happen to good countries, this one featuring Woodrow Wilson, Lyndon
Johnson, and George W. Bush -- three presidents who led us into
regretted wars with high-minded rhetoric. In some ways that cuts
Bush too much slack, reflected by Beinart's enthusiasm for the
Iraq War -- a mistake, Beinart admits, but one good enough to fuel
his first book, The Good Fight: Why Liberals -- and Only Liberals --
Can Win the War on Terror. (He was on to something there with
the implicit realization that conservatives like Bush couldn't do
the right things, but failed to recognize that the only way you
"win" a war is by keeping it from happening.)

Adam J Berinsky: In Time of War: Understanding American
Public Opinion from World War II to Iraq (paperback, 2009,
University of Chicago Press): Tries to make sense out of public
opinion poll data going back to the US entry into WWII. Claims a
lot of continuity between prewar and war fever attitudes, but I
don't quite see how that works.

Tom Bissell: Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter
(2010, Pantheon): I've read two historically significant travel
books by him (Chasing the Sea and The Father of All
Things) so tend to take him seriously, much more so than
his subject this time, which I tend to find abhorent.

Howard Bloom: The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision
of Capitalism (2009, Prometheus Books): Big (607 pp),
sprawling jumble of everything connected to everything else, but
mostly to capitalism past, present, and future. Spent some time
working in PR before wandering into quasi-science books; previously
wrote The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the
Forces of History and Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass
Mind From the Big Band to the 21st Century. Could be interesting,
could be nuts, or both.

Mark Philip Bradley/Marilyn B Young, eds: Making Sense of the
Vietnam Wars: Local, National, and Transnational Perspectives
(paperback, 2008, Oxford University Press): Eleven essays on various
aspects of the war, including some from Vietnamese perspectives.

HW Brands: American Dreams: The United States Since 1945
(2010, Penguin): Big subject, succinct at 432 pp. Author has written
biographies on Ben Franklin, Andrew Jackson, and both Roosevelts --
I read the latter, A Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life
and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and found
he did a good job of managing his space, neatly tying up two parts
that I had recently read detailed books on. Read a few pages of this
book, on Nixon and Watergate, where he quickly got to the point and
got the main points -- not that I wouldn't have preferred more venom.

John Broven: Record Makers and Breakers: Voices of the
Independent Rock 'n' Roll Pioneers (2010, University of
Illinois Press): Big book (640 pp), based on 100 interviews with
industry makers and shakers. Author is a consultant to Ace Records
in the UK, high up on the list of reissue labels I wish would
send me records.

Nicholas Carr: The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing
to Our Brains (2010, WW Norton): Well, something is making
us stupid(er), so why not blame the Internet? The thesis is that
constant stimulation shortens attention span leading to shallow
thinking, but that seems equally or even more true of other media,
e.g. radio and television. I'd say that the worst thing about web
pages is how so many attempt to emulate television. I suppose you
can blame the net for making stupid people louder, but that's,
well, if not democracy at least levelling, which is a price we
(more/less gladly) pay for access.

Harvey G Cohen: Duke Ellington's America (2010,
University of Chicago Press): Big biography of Ellington (720 pp),
1899-1974, with sideward glances at the country that change around
him.

Tyler Cowen: Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity
in a Disordered World (2009, Dutton): Economist/blogger turns
out a jumbled book of future think related somehow to autism -- Temple
Grandin seems to understand what he's up to, but I don't. But then
I've never been much impressed by his economics blog.

Elizabeth Fox Genovese/Eugene D Genovese: Slavery in White
and Black: Class and Race in the Southern Slaveholders' New World
Order (paperback, 2008, Cambridge University Press): Sums
up what started as an innovative Marxist analysis of the slave
South and turned into what? -- some kind of celebration of the
slaveholders' conservative anticapitalism? I read Genovese early
on and he had a big impact on my thinking. I understand he veered
far to the right around 1990, but don't know what that was about.
This looks much like another late book, The Mind of the Master
Class: History and Faith in the Southern Slaveholders' Worldview.

Gary Giddins: Warning Shadows: Home Alone With Classic
Cinema (paperback, 2010, WW Norton): Mostly a collection
of short DVD reviews. Best known as a jazz critic, Giddins has
dabbled in film reviews for quite a while.

Risa L Goluboff: The Lost Promise of Civil Rights
(paperback, 2010, Harvard University Press): Argues that before
Brown v. Board of Education the civil rights movement was much
broader than just a legal challenge to racial discrimination --
that it had a lot to do with economic rights.

Alan Hart: Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, Vol. 3:
Conflict Without End (paperback, 2010, Clarity Press):
Previous volumes were subtitled The False Messiah (up to
1948) and David Becomes Goliath (1948-1967). This focuses
on Israel after 1967, the occupation and its perpetuation of
conflict. It's worth noting that each of these periods offered
a somewhat different Zionism, with the utopian ideology giving
way to the practical politics of dominance and occupation.

Christopher Hitchens: Hitch 22: A Memoir (2010,
Twelve): Somehow I have no picture in my mind of Hitchens as a
leftist journalist, which he was rumored to be before he got all
gonzo and signed up for Bush's Iraq adventure. Since then he's
mostly distinguished himself as a noisy atheist and a lout, which
makes him a poor example for atheism. Presumably he explains, or
more likely exemplifies, this here, not that either strikes me
as reason to read further.

Jack Horner/James Gorman: How to Build a Dinosaur: The New
Science of Reverse Evolution (2009; paperback, 2010, Plume):
Original subtitle: Extinction Doesn't Have to Be Forever. I
went through a phase reading a lot of paleontology books, including
Horner's Digging Dinosaurs: The Search That Unraveled the Mystery
of Baby Dinosaurs. The Jurassic Park angle strikes me as
nuts, but Horner's made major contributions to figuring out how
dinosaurs functioned, especially advancing the "warm-blooded"
hypothesis which I find makes a lot of sense.

Richard B Immerman: Empire for Liberty: A History of
American Imperialism From Benjamin Franklin to Paul Wolfowitz
(2010, Princeton University Press): Subtitle reminds me of Sorel's
cartoon of the evolution of presidents from FDR on, but this looks
to be more episodic, with six figure singled out: Franklin, Henry
Seward, Henry Cabot Lodge, John Foster Dulles, and Wolfowitz. Not
sure how Franklin qualifies, but in his time expansion was largely
conceived as contiguous and homogenizing. Not so with Seward's
drive across the Pacific, Lodge's militarization of that drive,
or the global megalomania of Dulles and Wolfowitz.

Jon Jeter: Flat Broke in the Free Market: How Globalization
Fleeced Working People (2009, WW Norton): Former Washington
Post bureau chief for South Africa, offers numerous examples of
how globalization has hurt South Africans and others, especially in
the third world.

Marilyn Johnson: This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and
Cybrarians Can Save Us All (2010, Harper Collins): A book
about librarians and what's happening to their world as it becomes
increasingly digital -- a more complicated and ambiguous story than
the wishful subtitle suggests.

Wayne Karlin: Wandering Souls: Journeys With the Dead and
the Living in Viet Nam (2009, Nation Books): Starts with
a diary a US soldier took off a Vietnamese soldier he killed in
1969, then follows the soldier and diary back to Vietnam to see
what he has done. Karlin tags along, writes it up.

Rashid Khalidi: Palestinian Identity: The Construction
of Modern National Consciousness (1998; paperback, 2009,
Columbia University Press): New introduction to Khalidi's 1998
book on how the Palestinians came to think of themselves as
Palestinian -- long the standard book on the subject.

Stephen Kinzer: Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America's Future
(2010, Times Books): Not major powers, but not chopped liver either:
two nations with about 75 million subjects each, major empires in
their pasts, and revolutions which set them apart from the crowd. In
other words, nations to be reckoned with if we want to be realistic
(which doesn't seem to be the case). Kinzer previously wrote on both
countries: Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds and
All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East
Terror.

Gideon Levy: The Punishment of Gaza (paperback,
2010, Verso): Short (160 pp) report on Israel's 2009 assault on
Gaza and the policies that led to it, based on 40 weekly columns
from Haaretz. One of the most conscientious Israeli
journalists working the beat. Several books on Gaza are trickling
out, like Norman G Finkelstein's 'This Time We Went Too Far':
Truth & Consequences of the Gaza Invasion, James Petras:
War Crimes in Gaza and the Zionist Fifth Columin in America,
and (scheduled for November) Noam Chomsky/Ilan Pappé: Gaza in
Crisis: Reflections on Israel's War Against the Palestinians.
(Pappé has a bigger book scheduled further out: The Bureaucracy
of Evil: The History of the Israeli Occupation.)

Andrew Moore/Philip Levine: Detroit Disassembled
(2010, Damiani/Akron Art Museum): Short (136 pp), expensive coffee
table photography book, with photos by Moore and text by Levine.
Detroit has become such a symbol for urban collapse that this
seems skimpy. Moore has another book, Russia: Beyond Utopia.

Vali Nasr: Forces of Fortune: The Rise of the New Muslim
Middle Class and What It Will Mean for Our World (2009,
Free Press): Uh, more petit bourgeoisie? Bothers me a bit that
his prime example is Abu Dhabi, about as representative of the
Middle East as Las Vegas is of America.

John M O'Hara: A New American Tea Party: The Counterrevolution
Against Bailouts, Handouts, Reckless Spending, and More Taxes
(2010, Wiley): Sort of a manifesto and how-to guide, blessed with a
foreword by Michelle Malkin. Expect many more books like this.

Naomi Oreskes/Erik M Conway: Merchants of Doubt: How a
Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues From Tobacco
Smoke to Global Warming (2010, Bloomsbury Press): The
tobacco case must seem like old hat by now, but the authors
claim some of the same scientists are now working for energy
companies still practicing denialism. The climate change case
something else. No doubt paychecks bias analyses, but it would
still be useful to see just how that works, especially in cases
(unlike marketing) where there is some sense of professional
standards. Related: David Michaels: Doubt Is Their Product:
How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health,
and Stephen H Schneider: Science as a Contact Sport: Inside
the Battle to Save the Earth's Climate.

Sasha Polakcw-Suransky: The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's
Secret Relationship With Apartheid South Africa (2010,
Pantheon): Actually, the whole history of Israel's foreign policy
has been to find common cause with fellow colonial settler states,
notably the French in Algeria, but also the Afrikaners in South
Africa. What's been a secret was the details of Israel's alliance
with Apartheid South Africa, especially nuclear proliferation.

Richard A Posner: The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy
(2010, Harvard University Press): Further thoughts on A Failure
of Capitalism, lest anyone take his criticism of capitalism's
failure too literally.

George Prochnik: In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for
Meaning in a World of Noise (2010, Doubleday): Argues
that "noise pollution" results in "insomnia, aggression, heart
disease, decreased longevity," not to mention annoyance. Lives
in New York City, which provides plenty of examples. Reminds
me that when I moved to the 23rd floor in Waterside on the East
River in NYC, I discovered I had found the only place in Manhattan
where I could open the windows and not hear road noise. Now, if
only we got ride of those damn helicopters.

Michael Radu: Europe's Ghost: Tolerance, Jihadism, and
the Crisis in the West (2010, Encounter Books): Looks
like another contribution to Europe's anti-Muslim immigration
hysteria, maybe with less of blatant racism than usual, maybe
not. The notion that Muslims cannot be assimilated into Europe
(or America) is certainly wrong, as is the equation of Islam
with Jihad.

Jeremy Rifkin: The Empathic Civilization: The Race to
Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis (2009, Tarcher):
I see him described as a "social thinker" -- I guess that means
a guy whose imagination is untethered to reality even though he
works hard to pretend to be relevant. This one looks to be
exceptionally frothy, as evidence by the final chapter titles:
The Climb to Global Peak Empathy, The Planetary Entropic Abyss,
The Emerging Era of Distributed Capitalism, The Theatrical Self
in an Improvisational Society, Biosphere Consciousness in a
Climax Economy.

Andrew J Rotter: Light at the End of the Tunnel: A Vietnam
War Anthology (3rd ed, paperback, 2010, Rowman &
Littlefield): Old history but not inseparable from the present,
partly because we never learned the right lessons, partly because
the tables have turned on Afghanistan: instead of critics citing
Vietnam as a caution against quagmire, now we have generals who
again see light at the end of the tunnel precisely because they
think Vietnam holds the key to winning counterinsurgent wars.

Ed Schultz: Killer Politics: How Big Money and Bad Politics
Are Destroying the Great American Middle Class (2010, Hyperion):
TV pundit, started right, now leans left, like most likes to keep it
simple and loud: "The middle class, where the greatness of this nation
is rooted, is under siege by an increasingly unethical system, managed
by economic vampires who are sucking the lifeblood out of the American
family and ripping the heart out of democracy itself." Much of that is
true enough, but I tend to look at the Middle Class as a mirage -- an
intellectual artifice that tries to imbue unionized workers with petit
bourgeois values while separating them from the dreaded poor. As with
most mirages, it fades on close inspection, but politicians -- like
Obama with his "middle class tax cuts" -- still try to work it.

Rachel Shabi: We Look Like the Enemy: The Hidden Story of
Israel's Jews from Arab Lands (paperback, 2009, Walker):
In 1948, with most of Europe's Jews slaughtered by the Nazis and
their Fascist allies, Ben-Gurion attempted to bolster the number
of Jews in Israel by getting Jews from Arab countries to move to
Israel. Once in Israel, Mizrahi Jews found themselves the butt of
discrimination by European Jews and their Sabra descendents, so
that's one big thing this book deals with. The more interesting
part is how they see themselves fitting into both Israel and the
Arab world: I think they tend toward the religious right, but
actually I've read very little about them.

Mark Thomas: Belching Out the Devil: Global Adventures
with Coca-Cola (paperback, 2009, Nation Books): Author
is "a less-than-hilarious BBC comedian" and/or "libertarian
anarchist"; he corrects a Coca Cola flack, saying that he's
picking on the company not because it's an easy target but
because it's a big target. It's also a broad one, doing
business in nearly every country, so there are bits on India
and Colombia and all over.

Paul Wapner: Living Through the End of Nature: The Future of
American Environmentalism (2010, MIT Press): Bill McKibben,
who coined the "end of nature" meme, contributes a favorable blurb
quote. Short (184 pp), like he's trying to make it too simple.

Reza Aslan: Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious
Extremism in the Age of Globalization (2009; paperback,
2010, Random House): Reprint of How to Win a Cosmic War: God,
Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror, with a more
straightforward and self-explanatory title, although I do miss
the bit about ending the war.
[book page]

Saree Makdisi: Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation
(2008; paperback, 2010, WW Norton): Occupation is a word describing
an abstract process, one that cannot begin to convey the subtle and
pervasive layers of control and manipulation Israel exercises over
the Palestinian territories.

Workerphobia

Matthew Yglesias: Taxophobia: I read the referenced posts by
Greg Mankiw and
Brad DeLong, and don't think they're really saying what Yglesias
thinks they're saying, but Yglesias does sum up one political view
that seems to be well entrenched if not necessarily spreading wide:

What I take Mankiw et al to be saying is that taxes are really,
really, really bad. And taxes on high-income people are really,
really, really, really, really, really, really bad. They think that
the electorate is joined by leftwing economists in massively
underestimating the scale of the badness. And they look at population
aging and growing health care costs and see that it's likely that
taxes will go up in the future. And they think this is an incredibly
bad outcome, with massive negative long-term
consequences. Consequences that are far more dire than any transient,
years-long period of unemployment. Ergo, it's really important to do
the best one can to weather the 111th Congress -- the most leftwing
congress in decades, and the most leftwing congress we're likely to
see in quite some time -- while minimizing increases in the spending
level. Really, really, really important.

Mankiw's nonsense can be highlighted in three lines:

"Higher future taxes reduce demand today for at least a couple
of reasons. First, there are Ricardian effects to the extent that
consumers take future taxes into account when calculating their
permanent income."

"That is, businesses may be reluctant to invest in an economy
that they expect to be distorted by historically unprecedented
levels of taxation in the future."

"But many other economists (and I suspect many stimulus-skeptics
like the tea-partiers) believe that taxes have significant incentive
effects and can prevent the economy from reaching its full potential."

Let's start in the middle: nobody is arguing for "historically
unprecedented levels of taxation" -- I'd be inclined to kick up
the estate tax a notch, but I don't see a need for 90% marginal
tax rates. (I'd cap top bracket income taxes around 50%, where
they might be aggravating but wouldn't be a real disincentive --
which is not to say that higher, truly disincentivizing tax rates
wouldn't have social value in capping greed.) Nor do any currently
projectable federal debt levels require unprecedented levels of
taxation. So a key part of Mankiw's argument -- my second quote
above is an elaboration of the second point alluded to in the
first quote -- is sheer demagoguery. Moreover, refuting it lets
us invoke historical cases. In particular, the period when the
US had its highest tax rates was exactly the period when the
nation's economy grew the fastest, which at the very least lends
no credence to the claim that raising tax levels depresses the
economy.

The first point about Ricardian effects strains credulity.
Is anyone ever so smart that they can correctly anticipate how
future events will eventually prefer investment decisions today?
It's easy to pile on counterexamples: when did the inevitability
of a bubble of real estate or high-tech stocks or Dutch tulips
bursting ever inhibit that bubble from developing? If there is
any one thing you can count on it's that business only thinks
in the short term. There may be good reasons to worry about the
long term, but the current behaviour of business isn't one of
them.

The third quote raises two problems. While it is true that
current tax policy allowances and deductions affects business
behaviour inasmuch as it adjusts (or distorts) prices, it isn't
at all clear that overall tax levels have much effect except
on distribution -- low tax rates let profits accumulate much
faster (making the rich much richer and increasing inequality)
while high tax rates slow down that accumulation, but there is
little evidence of whole industries boarding up due to higher
tax rates. More generally, investors -- i.e., people with more
money than they can consume -- will seek out higher returns
but will settle for the best returns they can get, folding
only when there are no profits to be had at all. As long as
tax levels allow for some profits, and the taxes are then
recirculated as spending, it's hard to see how higher tax
levels depress the economy -- at most they depress the upper
classes, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

The other canard is the bit about the economy "reaching its
full potential." I have no idea what Mankiw thinks this means,
especially since he implies that it relates to low taxes. A
more plausible definition would tie "full potential" to full
employment. We tend to think ass backwards on this issue: that
a booming economy causes fuller employment, rather than that
fuller employment is what makes the economy bloom; much as we
are led to believe that business investment creates jobs, as
opposed to realizing that labor is what creates all that we
value in the economy. For various reasons, capitalists left
to their own devices never produce full employment. The only
way to get there is for government to fill the gap, both by
spending to prop up the private sector and by creating jobs
directly. And to pay for those jobs you have to raise taxes,
and the most productive way to do that -- with inequality
approaching historically unprecedented levels, and especially
with the the rich sitting on cash they can't find productive
investments for -- is to target the rich.

And that's the deeper context for Mankiw's argument. It's
not just that he dislikes taxes. Just as important is that
he isn't bothered by unemployment. In fact, I think you'll
find that he rather likes unemployment: more unemployment
means cheaper labor, less pressure to share profits, tilting
the balance of power toward capital. Friendly economists may
pollute the air with Ricardian mumbo jumbo, but the prime
reason capitalists don't like taxes, labor rights, and any
sort of government action to create jobs or lessen the pain
of unemployment is that they don't want to share. In fact,
their power viz. labor matters so much that they'd rather
suffer through a sluggish economy than lose any of their
relative advantages.

One problem here is that in polite political discourse,
Mankiw et al. can't just come out and say, "hey! we like this
10% unemployment, we like that the safety net is unraveling,
we're looking forward to squeezing labor even harder." Rather,
they talk about how we can't afford the deficit (sooner or
later, at least in some crackpot theories), about how taxes
only hurt the economy (and therefore how we can't fix the
deficit problem). They have to pretend that only the richer
rich create jobs (even though most of their gains have come
from bidding up each other's assets), and that the economy
they build somehow benefits us all.

One thing Yglesias is right about is that Krugman, DeLong,
et al. are "a bit too literal in their disagreements with the
center-of-center economists [whoever that is] of the world."
I have three or four recent books on why Ricardo was full of
shit, but that's not what this is really about. It's really
about power: who pays and who benefits. And that reflects a
fundamental difference in worldviews: do we share the world,
or do we compete for its spoils? The Great Depression and
WWII shocked people into a sense that we're all in this
together, and out of that we forged a more equitable society,
based on labor rights, a safety net, and steep progressive
taxation to pay for it. It wasn't perfect, and flaws going
back to the beginning would eventually undermine it. But in
the 1970s the rich revolted, exploiting their substantial
advantages for political and economic gain, and they have
gradually tore the social compact apart while compounding
problems. The eight disastrous years of George Bush led to
a change of leadership, but sadly, pathetically not to a
change in thinking. We are in the midst of a one-sided class
war, where the putative defenders of the non-rich don't even
recognize they're being fired on, and don't make more than
the most paltry efforts to defend the people who voted them
in.

On the other hand, I don't blame Krugman and DeLong for
focusing on the economic nonsense. They've worked hard to
keep the economists from pulling the wool over our eyes. I
blame the Democratic Party politicos, starting with the guy
in the White House, for not finding principled political
issues to run on and drive home, such as the need for full
employment to lift working wages, and more progressive taxes
to level the playing field; the need to get out of the global
war business -- one which only serves to fund the right and
keep the left on the defensive -- and the need to reverse
the great risk
shift -- the real security threat that most Americans
face these days.

Christgau (via webmaster) got a nasty letter from a heavy metal
fan (seems to be German) objecting to a Metallica review (Master
of Puppets), and asked me to pass on a reply:

Because English is not your first language, you believe I'm calling
Metallica sludge when in fact I'm contradistinguishing them from sludge,
and you believe I'm describing their actual chest muscles when in fact
I'm describing the image their music calls up. If you don't understand
the previous sentence, find an English speaker who can help you out.

Right, I don't like metal. I've said so again and again. But when I do
write about it I explain why. And I never review a record I haven't
played front to back many times.

The correspondent wrote back another nastier (and more incoherent)
letter, also bringing up a series of Slayer reviews. I responded to
this, with a couple of comments worth preserving here:

One question I always have when I read short (or even long) reviews
without a grading system is: but did the reviewer like it? And how
much, relative to all sorts of other albums? The grade is a short,
succinct answer to that question. It saves the reviewer from having
to write an adjective-laden final sentence, and saves the reader
from having to parse those adjectives into something that can be
compared to other records.

Of course, anyone who's ever attended school is bound to be more or
less grade-phobic. I've personally assigned 16000 grades to records,
and still regard the practice much like Winston Churchill regards
democracy (the worst system, except for all the rest -- don't recall
the exact quote, but that's the gist of it).

As for your remonstrance against reviewing styles you dislike, I
can think of two answers: 1) sometimes it helps to clarify the
reasoning behind one's preferences by contradistinguishing them
against one's dislikes (especially where they are not prejudices
but the fruits of unpleasant experience); and 2) there are nearly
always exceptions to be found, both because the boundaries between
styles are so fluid and because each style has its own integrity
and formal logic and there's usually hidden value in that. I can't
think of any styles that never have any value, although there are
plenty that are prone to mediocre hackwork and don't seem to be
worth pursuing.

And:

Among other things, Christgau admits to various prejudices, including his
dislike of metal. If all you're interested in is metal you won't find
Christgau to be a very useful guide. That happens sometimes, and you're
entitled to your own aesthetics -- just not to judge people based on
criteria that is in the end merely subjective.

Music Week

Music: Current count 16861 [16831] rated (+30), 839 [839] unrated +0).
The blip in the rated count was partly the result of a bookkeeping
matter, as I discovered that I hadn't entered grades for Concord's
Profiles where they simply reissued previous Best Of
titles. Otherwise plodding through Jazz Prospecting with little
enthusiasm, and sampling Rhapsody when technical glitches don't
get in the way. Got email saying that Tatum wants me to post a
music column. That's good news.

Also added grades for remembered LPs from way back when:

Ornette Coleman: Ornette! (1961, Atlantic): Did
have this record, but didn't recall it at all distinctly; played
on Rhapsody due to its peculiar tie-in with Rahsaan Roland Kirk's
A Meeting of the Times on a Collectables twofer. Quartet
with Don Cherry, Scott LaFaro, and Ed Blackwell. Grade below may
even underrate it.
A-

Jazz Prospecting (CG #24, Part 5)

Aside from a pick hit candidate, listening to a lot of good,
solid, exemplary even, records that don't inspire me to write
further -- several stuck in the turntable for multiple plays,
which is one reason I didn't get further. Pretty much in the
middle of the Jazz CG cycle right now. Could shift to closing
mode in a couple of weeks.

Archie Shepp: The New York Contemporary Five (1963
[2010], Delmark): One of two contemporaneous John Tchicai groups that
took New York for their name -- the other was New York Art Quartet
with trombonist Roswell Rudd -- yet recorded mostly in the alto
saxophonist's native Denmark. This one sported Don Cherry (cornet)
and Archie Shepp (tenor sax) on the front line, Don Moore (bass)
and J.C. Moses (drums). They recorded a studio album in New York
for Fontana in August 1963, then two live sets at Jazzhus Montmartre
in Copenhagen for Sonet in November. The latter, minus two cuts,
were consolidated by Storyville into a single CD. This reissue
goes back to Sonet's Vol. 1 -- perhaps the other shoe will
fall later, although there is no indication of it here. They went
on to cut one more album for Savoy in 1964, with different bass
and drums, Ted Curson replacing Cherry on two cuts, and Shepp's
name (for the first time, I think) out front. Starts with the
three horns brawling before the rhythm section enters to sort
things out. Rough, primeval avant-garde, of the moment, with
1967-vintage liner notes that fall into the period.
B+(***)

Mikrokolektyw: Revisit (2009 [2010], Delmark):
Polish duo, Artur Majewski on trumpet, Kuba Sucher on drums, both
working electronics, based in Wroclaw but with some sort of
connection to Chicago -- at least to Rob Mazurek, whose Chicago
Underground is a basically similar cornet-drums duo. Sounds
microtonal at first, but the trumpet offers relief from any
potential tedium.
B+(*)

Alper Yilmaz: Over the Clouds (2009 [2010],
Kayique): Electric bassist, from Turkey, studied industrial
engineering, based in New York since 2000, second album since
2007. Also takes credits for sound design and loops. The bass
lines are highlighted by Nir Felder's guitar, while David
Binney's alto sax provides a sharp contrast.
B+(**)

Curtis Fuller: I Will Tell Her (2010, Capri,
2CD): Trombonist, b. 1934, has thirty-some records since 1957,
the majority before 1963, this only the third since 1996.
Basically a mainstream hard bop player: best known early album
was called Blues-ette; he came back after a decade-long
hiatus in 1972 with Smokin' and Crankin'; for
his 2005 outing he vowed to Keep It Simple. But this
album steps up for a bit more: a sextet, dominated by tenor
saxophonist Keith Oxman with Al Hood's trumpet providing the
ear candy; not his best trombone, but he gets in some licks.
Two discs, one studio, the other live (no dates given). The
rhythm section is lively, the sets endlessly enjoyable.
B+(***)

Steve Turre: Delicious and Delightful (2010, High
Note): Trombone player, from Omaha, also plays conch shells but
I've never figured out how that works or what they sound like.
Fifteen album since 1987, including tributes to J.J. Johnson
and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. This one doesn't quite live up to its
title, but it is boldly flavored, with Billy Harper on tenor
sax -- his rough edges ground down by all that big band work
of late, but his energy undiminished -- Larry Willis on piano,
Russell Malone on guitar (just two cuts), bass, drums, and some
extra bata and djembe on one cut. Harper wrote two songs, Turre
the rest except for "Tenderly." Best record since the Kirk
tribute, but they all seems to be coming up with the same
grade.
B+(**)

Frank Carlberg/John Hebert/Gerald Cleaver: Tivoli Trio
(2009 [2010], Red Piano): Piano-bass-drums trio, respectively. Pianist
Carlberg hails from Finland, studied at Berklee and New England
Conservatory, settled down in Brooklyn. Has at least eight records
since 1992. Dense, full of intrigue and pleasure. I'm tempted to
give Hebert a good deal of the credit; he always seems to show up
in the right places.
B+(***)

Reed's Bass Drum: Which Is Which (2009 [2010],
Reed's Bass Drum): Brooklyn-based sax trio, with Jonah Parzen-Johnson
leading on baritone, Noah Garabedian on bass, and Aaron Ewing on
drums. First album. Freebop, moderately paced, no surprise given
how slow the bari takes the corners; marvelous, though, when the
big horn reaches for a bottom note.
B+(**)

Orlando Le Fleming: From Brooklyn With Love (2009
[2010], 19/8): Bassist, b. 1976, Birmingham, UK; moved to New York
2003. Wikipedia has an article on a professional cricket player
named Antony Orlando Frank le Fleming, born on the same day in the
same town (well, pretty large city), who played 1994-96; web site
bio says he played cricked "for five years in the minor counties,"
which I guess is consistent. First album, although he has a healthy
number of side credits going back to 1999, especially with Jane
Monheit. Quartet here, with Will Vinson on alto sax, Lage Lund on
guitar, and Antonio Sanchez on drums. Lund has some tasty guitar
leads here, and Vinson is sharp but moderate. Attractive album.
Seems like I'm on a run of records that sound quite good but don't
quite move me to write about them.
B+(**)

Jamie Begian Big Band: Big Fat Grin (2008 [2010],
Innova): Guitarist, studied at Hartt School of Music, Manhattan
School of Music; started teaching at Western Connecticut State
University in 1991. Interest in big band led him to Bob Brookmeyer.
Second Big Band album, the first coming out in 2003. Group is
seventeen strong, conventional big band size and shape except
second guitar instead of piano. Draws on New Yorkers, only a few
that I recognize. Some terrific passages scattered about.
B+(**)

TGB: Evil Things (2009 [2010], Clean Feed):
Portuguese trio: Sérgio Carolino (tuba), Mário Delgado (guitar),
Alexandre Frazăo (drums). Delgado wrote six pieces, Frazăo three;
one is a group improv, and four more are from others -- only
one my eyes can make out is Bill Evans. Rather scattered, as
you might expect given how they juxtapose originals named for
"George Harrison" and "Aleister Crowley" -- the latter may be
the one that sounds like slightly bent Black Sabbath. The
tango/soundtrack-ish "Close Your Eyes" is a choice cut, and
the high-speed tuba bebop solo on "Tangram" is a hoot, but
there's too much evil for my taste; suggest they lighten up
and call their next one Mischievous Things.
B+(*)

Angles: Epileptical West: Live in Coimbra (2009
[2010], Clean Feed): Sextet, haven't tracked every member down
but safe to say Scandinavian. Leader is Swedish alto saxophonist
Martin Küchen, b. 1966, nothing under his own name but also works
in Exploding Customer (which has scored a couple of HMs here),
Trespass Trio, and Sound of Mucus. Second album for group, with
Magnus Broo (trumpet), Mats Älekint (trombone), Mattias Stĺhl
(vibes), Johan Berthling (bass), and Kjell Nordeson (drums).
Big beat, roiling horns, scattered tinkles from the vibes, loud
and propulsive. Makes me smile all over.
A-

Kris Davis/Ingrid Laubrock/Tyshawn Sorey: Paradoxical
Frog (2009 [2010], Clean Feed): Not familiar with Laubrock,
although she also appears on the Tom Rainey record still awaiting
my attention. Tenor saxophonist, b. 1970 in Germany, based in London
and/or Brooklyn; five albums since 1997 by most counts, which file
this one under Davis, a pianist from Canada who specializes in fast
and furious saxophonists -- Rye Eclipse with Tony Malaby
is my top recommendation. Sorey is a drummer, plays in Fieldwork
and has a couple albums on his own that are more focused on his
composition than his percussion. This should click in interesting
ways, but Laubrock isn't that fleet and that seems to slow down
the others. Also a queer stretch of silence (or very low volume)
creates a false ending -- not sure what's going on there.
B+(*)

Tom Rainey Trio: Pool School (2009 [2010], Clean
Feed): Album says this was recorded "on September 4th, 2010" --
I assume that's a typo for 2009. Rainey is a drummer who's made
a big impression, especially in Tim Berne's groups. Has a long
credits list going back to 1987, but this is the first album
under his own name. Gets all the composition credits, too. Trio
includes Ingrid Laubrock on tenor and soprano sax and Mary
Halvorson on guitar. Both tend to wobble here, which is sort of
an art form for Halvorson, harder to speculate on with Laubrock.
Free playing, takes a lot of attention, doesn't give much back,
even from the drummer.
B+(*)

No final grades/notes this week on records put back for further
listening the first time around.

Not Even False

Paul Woodward: Petraeus: mission will be accomplished:
I think it was Wolfgang Pauli who once dismissed a fellow physicist's
theory by declaring that it was not even false, suggesting there are
whole dimensions of mind-boggling nonsense that are based on nothing
substantial enough to even be disproved. I felt the same way a couple
days ago when I saw a front page Wichita Eagle article that
quoted Petraeus: "We are in this to win. That is our clear objective."
Nothing can be less clear, since the problem isn't so much how to
"win" as what the hell does "winning" even mean in this context?
I have no idea, and not just because I've repeatedly argued in the
past that war itself is failure, that the moment you go to war the
only question remaining is how much you will lose before you can
extricate yourself from it.

See if another Petraeus quote helps: "We're engaged in a contest
of wills. Our enemies are doing all that they can to undermine the
confidence of the Afghan people." For starters, this ignores a very
central fact of the war, which is that "our enemies" are in fact a
substantial fraction of "the Afghan people"; even more importantly,
that we are not "the Afghan people" in any sense. For us to "win"
a lot of Afghans have to lose, so who is it who's really trying to
"undermine the confidence of the Afghan people"? Then there is the
matter of will, one of our central political conceits, the notion
that all it takes to bend other people is assertion of our magic
will, or more to the point, that all we need for our will to work
is endless faith in the force of our magic, thereby reducing the
world to nothing more than a reflection of our psyche. Sounds like
a clinical definition of insanity.

Even if will worked, you have to ask whose will is Petraeus
trying to rally? The self-serving careerist military? The fickle
politicians? The vast washed, coddled, attention-deficit masses
whose idea of winning is constantly trivialized by "reality" TV?
Ultimately it doesn't matter, because all it takes to disable
the peculiar magic of will is the inevitable unbeliever -- the
future scapegoat for failure because, well, who's going to doubt
the general's will? That the bullshit is so transparent should
mean that the end is near. But what it certainly means is that
the war party wants to make sure we don't learn any lessons from
the debacle.

Ann Jones: Strategies for "Success" in Afghanistan:
Second title: "Counterinsurgency Down for the Count in
Afghanistan . . . But the War Machine Grinds On
and On and On." Points out that COIN in theory is "a tricky,
even schizophrenic, balancing act"; in practice it's even harder,
but since we're obsessed with "success" how about some shortcuts?

The part of the lethal activity that often goes awry is supposed to
be counterbalanced by the "sorry" part, which may be as simple as
dispatching U.S. officers to drink humble tea with local "key
leaders." Often enough, though, it comes in the form of large,
unsustainable gifts. The formula, which is basic COIN, goes something
like this: kill some civilians in the hunt for the bad guys and you
have to make up for it by building a road. This trade-off explains
why, as you travel parts of the country, interminable (and often
empty) strips of black asphalt now traverse Afghanistan's vast
expanses of sand and rock, but it doesn't explain why Afghans, thus
compensated, are angrier than ever.

Many Afghans, of course, are angry because they haven't been
compensated at all, not even with a road to nowhere. Worse yet, more
often than not, they've been promised things that never
materialize. (If you were to summarize the history of the country as a
whole in these last years, it might go like this: big men -- both
Afghan and American -- make out like the Beltway Bandits many of them
are, while ordinary Afghans in the countryside still wish their kids
had shoes.) [ . . . ]

I could go on. If you spend time in Afghanistan, evidence of
failure is all around you, including those millions of American
taxpayer dollars that are paid to Afghan security contractors (and
Karzai relatives) and then handed over to insurgents to buy protection
for U.S. supply convoys traveling on U.S. built, but
Taliban-controlled, roads. Strategy doesn't get much worse than that:
financing both sides, and every brigand in between, in hopes of a
happier ending someday.

Maybe things would work better if we had a politically connected
shoe company to get in on the graft, but Halliburton doesn't make
shoes.

Brian Katulis: Restrepo:
Ann Jones wrote her article after a recent stretched embedded with
US forces in Afghanistan. She talks about what she saw, but the
recent documentary Restrepo gives you a chance to see some
of this yourself. I haven't seen -- or for that matter the Iraq
documentaries Gunner Palace and The War Tapes Katulis
refers to -- and can't vouch for the movie, other than to point out
the obvious that in focusing on American soldiers you'll have to
work hard to try to reconstruct an Afghan view of their invasion,
and will inevitably miss a big part of the big picture.

Rhapsody Streamnotes: July 2010

Recycled Goods (75): June 2010

Music Week

Music: Current count 16831 [16810] rated (+21), 839 [838] unrated (+1).
Fairly light rating count during the week; bit more over the weekend when
I finally tapped into Rhapsody.

Jazz Prospecting (CG #24, Part 4)

Early in the cycle, and near the turn of the month I got a bit
distracted with Recycled Goods and Rhapsody, both forthcoming this
week. Put a couple records back for further listening. I used to
do that quite often, but cut way down over the last year given
the need to hack through the backlog. Checked out a couple of
records using Rhapsody -- I imagine I could chase down the Regina
Carter, but feel less compelled to do so now.

Bona: The Ten Shades of Blues (2009 [2010], Decca):
No indication of first name on cover, but he's generally gone as
Richard Bona. Born 1967 in Cameroon, moved to Germany, France, New
York; main instrument is electric bass, although he's also credited
with guitars, keyboards, drums, percussions, and samples here, and
he sings on all tracks. Has eight (or more) albums since 1999. The
blues concept here makes for a grand tour of world music, with
various combinations of Indian, African, European, and American
musicians, including bits of Bailo Baa fula flute, Niladari Kumar
sitar, Jojo Kuah drums, Gregoire Maret harmonica, Jean Michel
Pilc piano, Christian Howes violin, Ryan Cavanaugh banjo, and
Bob Reynolds sax. Mildly spiced, gently groveful.
B+(**)

Jason Moran: Ten (2010, Blue Note): Pianist,
b. 1975, grew up in Houston, studied at Manhattan School of
Music with Jaki Byard, also hooking up with Muhal Richard
Abrams and Andrew Hill. Signed out of college by Blue Note,
his first album appearing on a major label in 1999, making
him an instant rising star. For a while it seemed like he
could do nothing wrong: his first four albums made my A-list,
and I can't offhand tell you if any other jazz pianist has
ever done that. Fifth one was live, an understanable slip,
but his next couple were merely good, and this one (which
I count as his eighth) comes nearly four years after the
last. Not clear where the title comes from, but it looks
like a summing up: covers of Monk and Byard, Bernstein and
Nancarrow, a joint credit with Hill. I've played this 6-8
times, maybe more, but haven't quite gotten into it. The
last two cuts (Byard's "To Bob Vatel of Paris" and Moran's
own "Old Babies") are fairly wonderful with hints of stride,
and there is a lot of fancy stuff up front and thought in
the middle -- impressive stuff, no doubt. Wonder why I don't
like it more.
B+(***)

Sunny Jain: Taboo (2010, Bju'ecords): Drummer,
also plays dhol, Indian-American, b. New York, parents Punjabi
immigrants. Group includes Mary Cary on piano, Nir Felder on
guitar, and Gary Wang on bass, with assorted vocalists on 6 of
7 songs. Compositions based on Indian ragas but don't sound
all that Indian. Project "started through a desire and a sense
of obligation to use my music as a platform to address social
justice issues," which sounds noble and may be worth exploring
but I haven't been able to latch on to much in three plays,
and feel like moving on.
B

The Stryker/Slagle Band: Keeper (2010, Panorama):
Guitarist Dave Stryker, b. 1957 in Omaha, NE; has a couple dozen
albums since 1989, mostly on Denmark's Steeplechase, a fairly
mainstream label that kept Dexter Gordon's career moving during
his years in exile (Duke Jordan, too, and Jackie McLean, only
in virtual exile). Steve Slagle, b. 1951 in Los Angeles, has a
similar career, less prolific, more of a sideman; worked with
Steve Kuhn in late 1970s, Carla Bley in early 1980s, Mingus Big
Band, and bumped into Stryker on the latter's first (1991)
Steeplechase album, Passage, and frequently thereafter,
consolidating their business in 2003, and releasing respectable
product ever since. With Jay Anderson on bass and Victor Lewis
on drums, high calibre journeymen. Still, through several plays
it keeps growing on me, mainstream postbop burnished up with
Slagle's blues tone -- even the two soprano features fit in
seamlessly.
A-

John Stein/Ron Gill: Turn Up the Quiet (2009
[2010], Whaling City Sound): Stein is a guitarist, from Kansas
City, MO, not sure how old but he's pretty thin on top; ninth
album since 1995. Has a light, elegant style, not much evident
here where he winds up playing a lot of bass. Gill is a singer,
from North Carolina, based in Massachusetts, with one previous
album, although like Stein I'd guess he's probably in his 50s.
Billy Eckstein-type voice, but smokier. Draws songs from Victor
Young, Sammy Cahn, Bart Howard, one each from Ellington and
Strayhorn, two Brazilian pieces (neither Jobim), a short Stevie
Wonder medley. "Detour Ahead" is especially striking. Uncredited
on the front cover is pianist Gilad Barkan, who fills his unsung
role admirably.
B+(**)

Mirio Cosottini/Andrea Melani/Tonino Miano/Alessio Pisani:
Cardinal (2009, Grimedia Impressus): This will take
a while to sort out. Impressus Records is Miano's label. I added
this to my "wish list" after Stef Gijssels reviewed it favorably.
Miano noticed and offered to send a copy. GRIM is an acronym for
Music Improvisation Research Group (or a reverse acronym for the
English translation). Not clear what that means or who is involved --
can't access the website listed in the inset. Cardinal could be the
group name, album title, or both. Impressus has four records, the
first three Miano duos. Miano plays piano. I assume he's Italian
("obtained a degree in musicology from the University of Bologna
with a thesis on J. Cage" [1993]), but he's based in New York,
where he's pursued a physics degree. Cosottini plays trumpet,
graduated Academy of Music of Florence (1992), played in the
first of Miano's duos, also in EAQuartet. Pisani plays bassoon
and contrabassoon. His website has some lovely astronomical photos
and a tantalizing series on assembling a 14-inch telescope. Melani
plays drums; is based in Prato, Italy. Enigmatic music. The bassoon
tends to slow things down and fade into atmospherics. Otherwise,
with trumpet leading you get something like Chicago Underground;
with bassoon, more of a chamber jazz effect.
B+(***)

Phil Wilson/Makoto Ozone: Live!! At the Berklee Performance
Center (1982 [2010], Capri): Wilson, b. 1937, plays trombone;
studied at New England Conservatory and the Navy School of Music;
played in big bands with Herb Pomeroy, the Dorsey Brothers, Woody
Herman, and Buddy Rich; taught at Berklee from 1966; has a spotty
recording career which adds up to a couple dozen albums. Ozone, b.
1961 in Kobe, Japan, is a pianist, studied at Berklee, returned to
Japan in 1983, where he is evidently a big deal. He also has a couple
dozen albums, of which this is one of the first. I haven't heard any
others, although I have an advance of a new album on Verve somewhere.
Standards, ranging from "Stella by Starlight" to "Giant Steps"
played with an amusing crudeness -- actually, it's just Wilson
who sounds crude, a badge of merit from trombonists.
B+(*)

Bryan and the Haggards: Pretend It's the End of the World
(2010, Hot Cup): Bryan Murray, tenor saxophinist, from WV, now in NY,
natch, hooking up with bebop terrorists Jon Irabagon (alto sax) and
Moppa Elliott (bass) and fellow travelers Jon Lundbom (guitar) and
Danny Fischer (drums), playing four Merle Haggard originals and three
more from Hag's songbook. "Silver Wings" is done bebop-style, with
the straight theme followed by working the changes, but it gets
trickier after that, especially with the Ornette-ish "Lonesome
Fugitive." Then someone uncredited goes Bob Wills on "All of Me
Belongs to You," leading into a comic scat over bass and drums.
Then there is the closer, "Trouble in Mind," done as ear-splitting
dirge, channeling the ghost of Rashied Ali on drums. Not sure
whether this is just an inspired joke or something more, and if
the former not sure we don't need more inspired jokes. But I do
want to note something in Leonardo Featherweight's liner notes,
a story I hadn't heard: "During the performance, [Lefty] Frizzell
noticed Haggard singing along with his songs and invited him up
on stage to sit in with the band. The crowd's appreciation of his
brief performance convinced him that music was to be an important
part of his life, and perhaps his career." Reminds me that hardly
anyone earns his ticket but for the grace of someone who has
gone before.
[A-]

The Britton Brothers Band: Uncertain Living (2009
[2010], Record Craft): John Britton plays trumpet; Ben Britton
tenor sax. Also on hand: Jeremy Siskind on piano, Taylor Waugh
on bass, Austin Walker on drums. First album. The brothers wrote
three tracks each, plus one by Siskind. Name recalls the Brecker
Brothers, but they are more into aggressive postbop and less into
skunk funk. Chris Potter guests on two tracks, and turns it up a
notch.
B+(*)

Ike Sturm: Jazzmass (2009, Ike Sturm): Bassist,
b. 1978, based in New York, holds a title as "Assistant Director
of Music for the Jazz Ministry at Saint Peter's Church in
Manhattan." One previous album. I've been avoiding this because,
well, you see the title. No false advertising there. Misty Ann
Sturm sings, best on the pure hymns, with choir and string
orchestra backing, all of which I could do without. The horns
are something else: Ingrid Jensen on trumpet/flugelhorn, Loren
Stillman on alto sax, and Donny McCaslin on tenor. There are
better places to hear them, but they're in form even here.
B-

Bill Carrothers: Joy Spring (2009 [2010],
Pirouet): Pianist, b. 1964 in Minneapolis; fourteenth album
since 1999 according to AMG, but they really mean 1992, and
they've only rated three, and haven't bothered with a bio.
So while I was tempted to say that he's one of those guys
with a sterling rep that I haven't managed to appreciate,
probably because I just don't seem to hear piano trios all
that clearly -- Walter Norris, Harold Danko, Marc Copland
are other names that pop into my head -- he probably isn't
well enough known for that. (And actually I did love his
2005 album Shine Ball, but that was goosed up with
prepared piano, which I've been a sucker for ever since
I first heard David Tudor playing John Cage.) This is a
trio, with Drew Gress on piano and Bill Stewart on drums --
names that could someday rival Peacock-De Johnette or (in
my mind) Johnson-Baron. Mostly Clifford Brown songs, like
the title track, plus three from Richie Powell, one each
from Duke Jordan and Victor Young, and, of course, Benny
Golson's "I Remember Clifford." Interesting idea I don't
understand well enough, and don't feel like digging into
right now. Will play it again.
[B+(***)]

John Skillman's Barb City Stompers: DeKalb Blues
(2009 [2010], Delmark): Trad jazz band, based in DeKalb, IL ("the
birthplace of barbed wire"), led by a clarinetist who played in
the Buck Creek Jazz Band for 32 years, but also owns and runs an
engineering firm in DeKalb. Featuring credit for trombonist Roy
Rubinstein, a 30-year veteran of "the New Orleans style Chicago
Hot Six," whose day job is Assistant Director at Fermilab in
Batavia, IL. Also with Larry Rutan on guitar (a QA manager),
Roger Hintzsche on bass (runs a fertilizer business), and Aaron
Puckett on drums (teaches high school). First album, mostly
pre-swing although it's hard to keep stuff that old pure, and
also hard to resist a Fats Waller song. Starst with "Millenberg
Joys"; ends with "My Old Kentucky Home"; Diana Skillman drops
in to sing "Yes Sir! That's My Baby." Corny, easy to see why
they stick with it even when the bread's got to come from
somewhere else.
B+(***)

Stephan Crump with Rosetta Trio: Reclamation
(2009 [2010], Sunnyside): Bassist, from Memphis, mother "an
amateur pianist from Paris," father "an architect and jazz
drummer"; studied at Amherst, based in New York, plays in
Vijay Iyer's piano trio. Fourth album since 1997; third was
called Rosetta with same lineup here, the bass flanked
by guitarists Liberty Ellman and Jamie Fox. Seems slight at
first, the guitars tuned down to adorn the bass, a balance
that lets you enter the framework. Didn't get much out of
the previous record, but this one draws me in every time.
A-

James Moody: 4B (2008 [2010], IPO): One of
the most popular bebop saxophonists to emerge in the early
1950s, both through his long association with Dizzy Gillespie
and through a few fluke hits of his own, and one of the last
standing. This follows up on last year's 4A, more
standards from the same sessions, the "4" referring to a
quartet with Kenny Barron, Todd Coolman, and Lewis Nash.
Straightforward, beautiful tone, swings through "Take the
A Train," doesn't cut up the Tadd Dameron and Benny Golson
pieces, backup is impeccable, and he leaves his flute in
the case. One to remember him by, but it's still a bit
early for that. Looks like this includes a label sampler,
which with its Roland Hanna and Roger Kellaway piano and
Tad Jones tribute band (One More) should make for
fine dinner background.
B+(***) [Aug. 25]

Johnny Griffin: Live at Ronnie Scott's (2008
[2010], In+Out): Recorded May 26-27 in London, about two months
before Griffin died on July 25, 2008, so perhaps the tenor sax
great's last record. Sounds rather fit, although he's often
overpowered by Roy Hargrove's trumpet, which in classic Griffin
form provides much of the energy level. With Billy Cobham on
drums, David Newton (mostly) on piano, with Paul Kuhn dropping
in for "How Deep Is the Ocean" and presumably taking the
uncredited vocal.
B+(**)

An Excellent Adventure: The Very Best of Al Jarreau
(1975-2004 [2009], Rhino): Originally slotted as a jazz singer because
he scatted a little and tackled a couple of Dave Brubeck-Paul Desmond
odd-time experiments, Jarreau cut a dozen 1975-94 albums for Warners,
grabbing popular and critical acclaim, including Grammys in pop and
R&B as well as jazz while never really fitting anywhere. I find
his "Blue Rondo a la Turk" one of the more hideous pieces of vocalese
ever recorded, and "Boogie Down" one of the lamer exercises in rote
disco. That leaves a couple of decent R&B songs like "We're in
This Love Together" in a compilation that proves Gödels Theorem:
like math, he's a system that cannot both be complete and consistent.
B-

Carrie Wicks: I'll Get Around to It (2009 [2010],
OA2): Singer, based in Seattle area, first album, backed by label
regulars including Hans Teuber on tenor sax and clarinet, Bill
Anschell on piano, and Jeff Johnson on bass. Standards, mostly
from 1940s with Elvis Costello's "Almost Blue" an outlier and a
co-credited original from 2008. Samba-fied medley of "Moonlight
in Vermont" and "No Moon at All" and a "Baby, Get Lost" among
the highlights.
B+(*)

These are some even quicker notes based on downloading or streaming
records. I don't have the packaging here, don't have the official hype,
often don't have much information to go on. I have a couple of extra
rules here: everything gets reviewed/graded in one shot (sometimes with
a second play), even when I'm still guessing on a grade; the records go
into my flush file (i.e., no Jazz CG entry, unless I make an exception
for an obvious dud). If/when I get an actual copy I'll reconsider the
record.

Sounds of Liberation (1972 [2010], Porter):
Philadelphia group, very much of the black power moment when
shards of avant-sax clashed with funky conga rhythms, merging
into something far out but not inaccessible. Byard Lancaster
is the saxophonist in a septet with guitar, bass, and four
percussionists counting vibraphonist Khan Jamal, the founder
and best known member of the one-album group.
A- [Rhapsody]

Evan Parker: House Full of Floors (2009, Tzadik):
Mostly trio with John Russell on guitar and John Edwards on bass,
Parker playing both soprano and tenor sax, scratchy and patchy on
both, with most of the muscle coming out of the bass. Aleks Kolkowski
joins in on three tracks, playing stroh viola, saw, and wax cylinder
recorder, respectively. I take this for easy listening background
music, but you probably don't.
B+(*) [Rhapsody]

Regina Carter: Reverse Thread (2010, E1 Entertainment):
Violinist, got a major label break when cousin James Carter was on
Atlantic, and proved popular enough to stick in the big leagues,
even winning a MacArthur "genius grant." This troll through Afropop
may be a genius concept but it's no genius execution. A lot of sawing
on top of guitar (Adam Rogers) or kora (Yacouba Sissoko), accordion
(Will Holshouser or Gary Versace), bass (Chris Lightcap or Mamadou
Ba), and drums (Alvester Garnett), does develop some rhythmic roll,
but seems to come from neither here nor there. Might get better with
more exposure, or might seem even more misaprised.
B+(*) [Rhapsody]

No final grades/notes this week on records put back for further
listening the first time around.

Deep Fried

Stage right is today's Fourth of July editorial cartoon from
Richard Crowson in The Wichita Eagle. Wish I had a
larger image to share, but the Eagle doesn't seem to
be much good at writing Javascript. The signature dog to the
lower left is saying, "Is this a revenge thing, BP?"

Actually, I wonder how many Americans recall that the War
for Independence (and for that matter the War of 1812) was
fought against Great Britain -- let alone that Afghanistan
fought its own War for Independence against the British, at
least three times in the 19th century, and serially over the
last 30 years against Russia and the United States -- with
Britain, recapitulating centuries of bad habits, once again
sending troops without even the pretense of empire for an
excuse.

Independence from colonial rule is a powerful idea, one
that was proclaimed on July 4, 1776, and has reverberated
throughout the world ever since -- even in Gaza one might
find Thomas Jefferson's words inspirational. However, they
are words given scant lip service in America for quite a
while now. We snatched Independence away from Cuba and the
Philippines in 1898, setting up direct rule in the latter
and sending massive troops in to beat down a revolt that
continues to this day -- despite the end of colonial rule
in 1946 but possibly because we still have troops stationed
there. In Cuba we set up a crony regime that protected our
business interests until thrown out by Castro's revolution,
an offense we protract by sanctions meant to keep Cuba
isolated and poor.

One thing that especially strikes me looking back to 1776
from the present day is that the people we call the Founding
Fathers all believed in the idea of a public interest, and in
forging a constitutional republic were willing to subject
their individual private interests to the will of the public.
That's a notion that we scarcely even give lip service to
anymore. Washington, and for that matter every state house
and most city halls, is swarming with interest group lobbies,
dedicated to the Adam Smith conceit that if everyone pursues
their own private interest it will all work out in the end.
(Smith, an enlightenment figure whose landmark The Wealth
of Nations is the other thing 1776 is remembered for,
most assuredly didn't think that in general, and his famous
quote is dripping with irony.)

Crowson is surely wrong that BP's big blowout in the Gulf
of Mexico is revenge for Independence. For one thing all that
happened to long ago to carry over to BP's bottom line. For
another, BP has enjoyed a lot more political clout, and has
made a lot more money, in Washington since the 1950s than
most American citizens have. BP was originally called the
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company because most of their assets were
in Iran, at least until Iran tried to nationalize them in
the early 1950s. The US government has done a lot of favors
for a lot of companies, but rarely have we stuck our necks
out so far as we did in 1953, when the CIA orchestrated a
coup in Iran to replace their democratic government with
an absolute monarch and a brutal police state, starting an
era of ill feelings between Iran and the US that persists
today -- that is in fact why we fear Iran's nuclear power
program may indeed turn into revenge. Looking the other way
when BP violates hundreds of safety rules is a pretty small
favor compared to overthrowing a country and launching a
series of conflicts that 57 years later are presently tying
down a couple hundred thousand US troops at an utter waste
of trillions of dollars. Bad as the oil leak has been, it
will be months or years before the disaster BP created in
the Gulf will compare to the disaster BP created in the
Middle East.

David Kocieniewski: As Oil Industry Fights a Tax, It Reaps Subsidies:
When I was growing up, one of the hottest tax issues in the country
was over the "oil depletion allowance," which was a rule that allowed
the oil industry to pretend for tax purposes that when it pumped oil
up from the ground it was losing money. This was a period when taxes
in general were high for the rich and their businesses, so the tax
savings awarded the oil industry produced some amazing distortions.
In particular, it allowed oilmen to become fabulously rich -- the
richest man in America at the time was J. Paul Getty, but he was
followed by all sorts of Hunts and Rockefellers -- and that money
turned them into political powers. And while oil industry moguls
were utterly dependent on the state to favor them with laws that
ensured their wealth, they gravitated almost without exception to
the far right fringe of the political spectrum, bankrolling Barry
Goldwater and Ronald Reagan and the Bushes, the political powers
who have turned this country upside down. The oil depletion allowance
isn't so much of a deal now that most of America's oil has been
pumped, but the oil moguls -- increasingly including corporations
based abroad like BP -- have all sorts of new ways to cheat their
taxes and accumulate money and power. This article details some:

When the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform set off the worst oil
spill at sea in American history, it was flying the flag of the
Marshall Islands. Registering there allowed the rig's owner to
significantly reduce its American taxes.

The owner, Transocean, moved its corporate headquarters from
Houston to the Cayman Islands in 1999 and then to Switzerland in 2008,
maneuvers that also helped it avoid taxes.

At the same time, BP was reaping sizable tax benefits from leasing
the rig. According to a letter sent in June to the Senate Finance
Committee, the company used a tax break for the oil industry to write
off 70 percent of the rent for Deepwater Horizon -- a deduction of
more than $225,000 a day since the lease began.

With federal officials now considering a new tax on petroleum
production to pay for the cleanup, the industry is fighting the
measure, warning that it will lead to job losses and higher gasoline
prices, as well as an increased dependence on foreign oil.

But an examination of the American tax code indicates that oil
production is among the most heavily subsidized businesses, with tax
breaks available at virtually every stage of the exploration and
extraction process. [ . . . ]

And for many small and midsize oil companies, the tax on capital
investments is so low that it is more than eliminated by various
credits. These companies' returns on those investments are often
higher after taxes than before.

Again, the thing that bothers me most about these tax breaks is that
the profits wind up supporting such retrograde political forces.

Master of a Small House

Groping around for some background on a record, I stumbled
across Derek Taylor's blog (started January 2010),
Master of
a Small House. Mostly an avant-jazz critic, mostly wrote
for the late Bagatellen. I don't read a lot of jazz
crit, but run across him now and then, and I've found his
recent year-end lists to be reliable. Will add him to my
rather select blog roll.

One piece of news I hadn't noticed is Bill Dixon's passing.
Dixon made a big splash on Cecil Taylor's Conquistador!
in 1966 -- on Blue Note, the last time that ever happened --
and went on to produce an erratic, narrowly admired discography,
primarily on Soul Note until the last few years when he had
something of a renaissance as a big band arranger. I've sampled
his work lightly and never been a big fan, although what I heard
of his recent Tapestries for Small Orchestra impressed
me.

Mostly straight, rather detailed reviews, including a lot of
records still in my inbox as well as some I should at least add
to my wish list, and occasional old ones tagged ROW, for Record
of the Week, a Bagetellen feature evidently meant to show
off the more obscure reaches of one's collection. These often
are not jazz, and strike me as worth looking into. From latest
to earliest:

I've only heard a few of these, and can't say I was much impressed
with Chops and Angel Song or for that matter Early
American Cajun Music, but Warm Tenor and the Joe Houston
comp are finds, and the others at least look intriguing.

Ignoring Dissent

Laura Tillem had a letter in the Wichita Eagle Friday,
under the title "War not answer":

CIA Director Leon Panetta suggested no one predicted the trouble
the U.S. military would have in Afghanistan. President Obama said he
doesn't have a crystal ball.

Well, I have a crystal ball, and it is called history. And many
others consulted this crystal ball and saw exactly what would happen,
which is exactly what has happened: More people have died, more money
has been wasted, more land has been despoiled, more hatred of the
United States has been created, more corruption has been funded, more
prisoners have been taken, more profiteering corporations have gotten
contracts, and more mindless fantasies of success have been spun.

Now more than ever, war is not the answer. War leads only to more
war.

People should recall that the first thing that happened after
9/11, even before the CIA-led revenge fantasy in Afghanistan got
off the ground, was that damn near everyone in politics and the
media started attacking pacifists and war/empire skeptics.
Panetta's "no one" is the result of pretending that anyone
the least bit doubtful that the only recourse was to plunge
into war and occupation of a country which over the previous
22 years had done nothing but fight wars to frustrate every
possibility of legitimate government. Silencing anyone not
on the war bandwagon was the quickest way to get the war on,
and the powers that be were very effective at doing that.

So effective, in fact, that Obama has always taken great
pains to prove that he's no pacifist. He couldn't criticize
the war in Iraq without offering Afghanistan as "the right
war," and that's why he's trapped there. Long time ago Noam
Chomsky explained how the bipartisan foreign policy wonks
"manufacture consent," but nowadays they don't even bother.
They just ignore dissent, dismiss critics out of hand, pretend
they can't even hear any criticism, then act surprised when
their own pet wars run aground.

The End of the Consumer Guide Era

Robert Christgau's Consumer Guide.
What makes this one different is the announcement that, "barring
miracles," this is the last one Christgau will write, at least
the last one MSN Music is paying for. That marks this as the end
of several eras. Most simply, it ends a 41-year stretch of 421
mostly monthly columns reviewing close to 15,000 albums from 1969
through 2010. Christgau developed a mode of research and a style
of writing that no one has seriously tried to compete with. For
one thing, it takes an incredible amount of work. For another, it
doesn't pay, at least compared to almost anything else you could
do with the same time. It may have been cost-effective at the
start as a way of salvaging something from albums played but not
deemed worthy of longer reviews -- the first few columns read
like tweets -- but Christgau gradually found his mission in the
format: not just to cover pop music more broadly than anyone
else but to branch out in search of similar pleasures from what
he called semi-popular music and what most regarded as pure
obscurities. He could do this at first because he edited the
section in a paper that didn't tell him what to do, and in the
long run he did it because that's who he became. In doing so,
he's provided an invaluable service to broad-minded people
willing to trust written words to guide them in the care and
feeding of their ears.

The deeper point, I think, is timing. Christgau, b. 1942,
just the right age to catch rock and roll (and only rock and
roll, despite his fondness for Monk) from the beginning all
the way through the present. Moreover, he started his career
in the late 1960s just as rock criticism was growing out of
its teen fandom phase. I'm just eight years younger, but the
difference is such that there are Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly
songs I first heard the Beatles and the Rolling Stones; when
I discovered rock crit, Rolling Stone, Crawdaddy,
and Creem were cranking, and Christgau, Paul Williams,
and R. Meltzer already had books out. There were others in
Christgau's generation but few stuck it out, let alone kept
in front of virtually every interesting twist and turn of the
last sixty years. Nobody writing about rock is ever going to
have that same sense of the new again, because everyone born
since Christgau has to catch up, and history is never quite
the same as being there.

Then there is scope, which for a rock critic was still
manageable in 1970 -- a voracious listener could pretty much
be aware of everything and everyone -- but soon to spin out
of control. (In 1976 Don Malcolm and I mapped this like the
big bang under the title
"Adventures in Diffusion.") The expansion of rock soon turned
most critics in to specialists, but Christgau was unique in
trying to keep wraps around the whole -- eventually he did
start slicing off niches of disinterest, like metal, or vast
size with only marginal interest, like jazz, but he still
covers more range than anyone, and not just because his format
lets him cover more records than anyone -- necessary but not
sufficient. Any younger, let alone future, critic is going
to be hard-pressed to get a sense of the whole.

Finally, there is the matter of money, which also had to do
with timing. He could build a career doing journalism to weekly
and monthly deadlines in a freewheeling alternative newspaper
(The Village Voice) that was both local to New York and
national in scope. (Living in Wichita, KS, I subscribed to the
Voice and/or the New York Free Press as a late
teenager.) Those publications are reeling now, blaming the web
but also (as far as I can see) increasingly victims of their
own corruption. Meanwhile, the new webzines make far less money
(if any at all), pay far less for content (if any at all), and
are more often than not on the slippery slope to uselessness.
(Christgau frequently complains about this in his
NAJP
Blog.) The prospects of any young journalist putting
together a career like Christgau's are vanishingly small.

Clearly, the collapsing business world with its incessant
beggar thy neighbor scams has crashed down on Consumer Guide,
and it's very unlikely to recover -- either with Christgau
or with anyone else, since who else could do it let alone
would do it? For a long time we managed to get tolerably
decent content paid for on the side, mostly by advertising,
but as businesses pinch pennies they find that what we will
tolerate can be made cheaper and poorer until the point when
it scarcely matters at all. Unless this turns around, we are
surely headed for a dark age, not so much because the limits
of specialist knowledge will shrink as because we are losing
the media of communicating wisdom. We live in a society that
is completely indifferent to wasting the vast resource of
someone like Christgau for no better reason than that we
don't have a mutually agreeable business model to support
him. Nor is he alone; indeed, only now does he cease to be
an exception.

One person commented that it sounded like Christgau is
"burnt out" on Consumer Guide, but that's not my impression.
He still enjoys doing Consumer Guide, but it sinks a lot of
his time that could be used on other projects. He's taken a
couple of breaks to research a big book on the whole history
of music in popular culture, but never made much headway on
writing it, and that's one thing he could do. He has had a
couple of other shorter book ideas he's shopped around --
can't really explain them. I've lobbied that he should do a
one-volume all-encompassing Consumer Guide book, which he
hasn't found very appealing because it would going back and
reviewing a lot of pre-1969 artists. Also, the Albums of
the '90s book fared so poorly that he never got a serious
offer on the '00s, so that, too, seems not cost-effective.
But we haven't talked about this stuff in quite a while, so
I'm pretty far out of the loop.

With no new Consumer Guides forthcoming, you might want to
take another look at the
old ones. I'm
still missing the "capsules" from Newsday and/or their
alternative Creem consolidations -- I don't have access
to a library good enough to dig them up, and thus far no one
has stepped forward to do the digging. I should get around to
updating the website in the next week or so with the last
four columns -- I've been rather lazy about them, and have
had lots of distractions, but don't have a lot more to do.

You can also look at the versions in the decade books (see
here). The
mid-section reviews are pulled from the database, which has
some extras omitted in the actual books, and there are quite
a few corrections (see the corrigenda files). The same software
could have been used to organize a Albums of the '00s
draft, which in lieu of the book you can preview
here.

Special bonus: top ten records I only found because Christgau
found them first:

James Talley: Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got a Lot of Love (1975, Capitol)

Through this together hastily, and no doubt missed much, but gives
you a taste. Most likely I would have found Culture and Pullen sooner
or later, Have Moicy! too, but the paths to them aren't obvious.
Looking through the master list, there are a lot of other items that
I in fact first discovered through Christgau but didn't include because
there were other paths that would have kicked in sooner or later --
unless, that is, my brief affair with mid-1970s rock crit hadn't led
to Christgau publishing me in The Village Voice and striking
up a friendship that has lasted over 35 years and changed my life in
many ways. It's been hard to write this without substituting "Bob"
for "Christgau" everywhere, but he has always steered me the other
way, arguing that formality better suits my voice. Besides, this
isn't an obituary. It's just a column.

Also, I routinely forward mail sent to webmaster at
robertchristgau.com. Have gotten a flurry of interesting
mail recently.

PPS: Christgau issued his own comment
here,
including a comment reminding you all that it was MSN's decision to
stop publishing Consumer Guide. Also links to an Ann Powers
interview.
Favorite line there: "People tend to abuse the grading privilege when
they start out."